INDIAN NOTES
AND MONOGRAPHS
Edited by F. W. Hodge
Vol. I
E51
.1392
vol.1
no.5
NMAIREF
No. 5
A SERIES OF PUBLICA-
TIONS RELATING TO THE
AMERICAN ABORIGINES
CHAPTERS ON THE ETHNOLOGY
OF THE POWHATAN TRIBES
OF VIRGINIA
BY
FRANK G. SPECK
NEW YORK
MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDI
HEYE FOUNDATION
1928
This series of Indian Notes and Mono-
graphs is devoted to the publication of the
results of studies by members of the staff and
by collaborators of the Museum of the Ameri-
can Indian, Heye Foundation, and is uniform
with Hispanic Notes and Monographs,
published by the Hispanic Society of
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Museum is in cordial cooperation.
A List of Publications of the Museum
will be sent on request.
Museum of the American Indian
Heye Foundation
Broadway at 155th St.
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INDIAN NOTES
AND MONOGRAPHS
Edited by F. W. Hodge
Vol. I
No. 5
A SERIES OF PUBLICA-
TIONS RELATING TO THE
AMERICAN ABORIGINES
CHAPTERS ON THE ETHNOLOGY
OF THE POWHATAN TRIBES
OF VIRGINIA
BY
FRANK G. SPECK
NEW YORK
MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN
HEYE FOUNDATION
1928
LANCASTER PRESS, INC.
LANCASTER, PA.
CHAPTERS ON THE ETHNOLOGY
OF THE POWHATAN TRIBES
OF VIRGINIA
BY
FRANK G. SPECK
CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction 227
Present Distribution of the Descendants of the Pow-
hatan Group 236
Pamunkey 237
Mattaponi 254
Adamstown or Upper Mattaponi Band 263
Chickahominy 267
Nansamond 278
Rappahannock 280
Potomac 282
The Powhatan Confederacy 286
Political Life 301
The Question of the Maternal Clan 306
Legal Status of the Pamunkey Tribe 307
Pamunkey Hunting Grounds 312
Hunting Customs 330
A Pamunkey Turkey-hunt 351
Turkey-calling 356
Fishing Customs 359
Canoes 374
Agriculture 382
Pamunkey Pottery 394
Featherwork 433
Postscript 450
Appendix Note 453
225
INDIAN NOTES AND MONOGRAPHS
NO. 5, PL.
LSchellboch-
MAP OF EASTERN VIRGINIA SHOWING DISTRIBUTION OF TRIBAL GROUPS
CHAPTERS ON THE ETHNOLOGY OF
THE PO\VHx\TAN TRIBES
OF VIRGINIA
By Frank G. Speck
INTRODUCTION
AMID the extensive gum swamps and pine
barrens of eastern Virginia there existed
formerly an Indian culture area of consider-
able complexity and of great importance. The
reason for its importance lies in the bearing it had
on the absorbing problem of Algonkian distribution.
The Virginia Algonkians were geographically situ-
ated near the southeastern terminus of the great
linguistic family: their culture was therefore marginal
to the stock. And yet the group, on account of
its advancement and complexity, appeared as a peak
of culture — a concretion sufficient to deserve rank
as a distinct sub-center, in short, a marginal sub-
center. The complexities, however, are by no means
baffling, inasmuch as the main source of influence
from the outside may be distinctly traced to the
southeastern or Gulf area, without specifying
whether it arose from Muskogian or possibly an
older eastern Siouan, or even an Iroquoian culture.
The Virginia tidewater Algonkians, indeed, appear
to have been less Algonkian in culture than they
227
228 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
were in speech. A similar change of culture has
been noted in the history of the Blackfeet, Cheyenne,
and Arapaho, whose Algonkian affinities stand
forth only through the link of language. The paren-
tal Algonkian linguistic characteristics of the
Virginia branch of the stock were retained with
remarkably little modification. Yet in respect to
material and social life the Powhatan tribes had
become converted by southern influences to such
an extent that their culture status, had we no
information concerning language to guide us, would
trend more toward classification with the Gulf area
than with the Algonkian of the north. As to the
physical characteristics of the original Virginia
tribes, at present we know practically nothing. A
study of the modern mixed communities has, how-
ever, been begun.
A second feature of importance in an attempt at
the interpretation of culture movements in this area
is the part played by these intermediate Algonkians
in conveying to the tribes through Pennsylvania,
New Jersey, and even as far as southern New
England, a collection of southern ethnic traits. Thus
there was created a northeasterly culture migration,
affecting, by the introduction of agriculture and its
arts, the industrial and social life of Algonkian groups
far into the northern hunting area. We may see how the
Algonkians of the Middle Atlantic and southern New
England states got their corn, bean, and tobacco
culture, and most of the artifacts concerned with
POWHATAN TRIBES 229
those non-nomadic activities, their splint basketry,
woven fiber fabrics, especially the remarkable feather
technique, their mat- and bark-covered rectangular
wigwams, and many other details of economic life.
The custom of cleaning the bones of the dead for
burial was also working northward. In surveying
the social and religious aspects of eastern Algonkian
life one has a strong suspicion that from the southern
portion of the continent, brought along by Iroquoian
migration, also came such traits as the matrilineal
reckoning of descent, with animal totemic associ-
ations. With the foregoing also came the develop-
ment of autocratic power vested in the hands of
the hereditary chief, the weakening of the old Algon-
kian institution of the hunting territory as the
nomadic hunting life gave way to agriculture, and
finally the corn festival, to which may be added
fortified stockades, ceramic influences, fish-nets,
shell beads, the water-drum, the two-stick ball-
game, methods of hair-dressing, the single-seam
one-piece moccasin, shamanistic societies, mound
erection, and group burial. After considering the
circumstance of language in Virginia one might
assume a southeastward migration of Algonkian-
speaking peoples to have taken place, who gradually
acquired the superior economic and social properties
of the south and later served in the northern spread
of the resulting culture-complex. There is evidence
in this direction, both archeological and historical,
pointing out that the Powhatan people were not
230 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
resident In the tidewater region for a very long
period. Strachey, the most explicit author on
Virginia ethnology, estimated in 1616, from what
he had been told by the Powhatan, that the
Indians had not been Inhabitants below the falls
of the James (the site of Richmond) for much more
than three hundred years. ^ In a paper- published
several years ago on one of the southeastern Algon-
kian remnants, the Machapunga, I presented an
impression of the recency of the southward Algon-
kian migration into Virginia, and the conclusions
reached now, after reviewing the whole field in more
detail, support this view.
As a preface to the ensuing chapters on special
topics of ethnology in early Virginia, the foregoing
remarks appearing at the beginning of my report
will serve to direct attention to what is evidently
the key to an understanding of the relationship
and distribution problems set before us by the
peculiar developments which characterize the little-
known tribes from Pennsylvania southward to the
North Carolina line.
In preparing the treatment of the independent
topics of ethnology based on practices and folk-
knowledge surviving among the existing descend-
^ Strachey, Wm., The Historle of Travalle Into Virginia
Britannia, 1616, London, 1849, p. 33.
2 Remnants of the Alachapunga Indians of North
Carolina, Amer. Anthr., n.s., vol. xviii, no. 2, pp. llS-lld,
1916, and The Ethnic Position of the Southeastern
Algonkian, ibid., vol. xxvi, no. 2, 1924.
POWHATAN TRIBES 231
ants, I have chosen to deal first with the so-called
Powhatan confederacy and the subject of govern-
ment, then with the theme of the individual hunting
territories, ever-present among the Algonkians who
tenaciously cherish their hunting traditions, and to
follow this by a description of economic properties,
ceramics, and featherwork, the memory of which
time has not been effaced among these antiquity-
loving Virginians.
Whereas the bulk of the culture traits enumerated
above stand on the records only by mention, the few
of them for which description and discussion are
permitted by their survival down to later times —
some even within reach today — have been chosen
for treatment here. There are various ways of
regarding records like these as they come to our
hands for perusal, but it should be obvious to one
looking over these pages that their contribution is
intended to deepen the existing knowledge of ethnic
properties of a people early transformed from their
original native estate by ruinous association with
Europeans; also to place their culture group on the
map of ethnological comparisons in the East —
nothing more. In days to come, when living
sources open for investigation are absolutely closed,
the real intensive study of this area, once rich in
development, will be made.
With the preceding suggestions in mind, let us
turn to the account of protracted investigations
among the Virginia tribes during the last ten years.
232 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
The task of trying to reconstruct Powhatan eth-
nology has indeed been like conjuring. There
seems to be little on the surface, yet shadows of
remote customs and modified survivals of old eco-
nomic life persist. Then we are aided by some
archeological examinations that are far from com-
plete. Chiefly, however, w^e have to thank the early
Virginia chronicles for much information covering
not only native industrial life, but ceremonies as
well. As to the present field, no one can say that
it is exhausted. Many pleasant weeks have been
passed consorting with the much-diluted Indian
remnants of the tidewater country, yet each season
creates a deeper feeling of respect for their loyal
tenacity to their Indian traditions. This is respon-
sible for the survival of many desirable facts hidden
away in memory's closets. For the rest it has been
inevitable that a people who have held their own
territory for three centuries through three wars with
Europeans covering at least thirty-two almost con-
tinuous years of that period, then subdued but not
obliterated, should have something concerning
their old life to offer to the interested and sym-
pathetic investigator, provided he have patience
enough to bear the slowness of the process.
The Powhatan culture area is one thing, the
political area is another. Roughly speaking, the
culture area, from the point of view of archeology
and recorded ethnology, included that portion of
eastern Virginia south of the Potomac river to about
POWHATAN TRIBES 233
the frontier of North Carolina, all the territory
lying east of the Piedmont, or the fall-line, extending
irregularly from Washington through Fredericks-
burg, Richmond, and Petersburg. Approximately
on each of the great tidal rivers this western girdle
of the Powhatan area was only a little above the
tide-line. The Powhatan tribes, therefore, may be
considered definitely as possessing a culture adapted
to the tidal stretches of the coastal plain. They
exhibit an illustration of Wissler's theory of alti-
tudinal habitat, having of all the Algonkians the
most extensively unelevated homeland. The same
culture boundary included, from testimony given
by Hariot and DeBry, the Algonkians of the North
Carolina coast as far as Pamlico sound. On the
eastern shore of Chesapeake bay, along the Accomac
peninsula, dwelt the Accomac and Accohanoc,
included under Powhatan rule as far north as the
Maryland line. If subsequent archeological research
establishes for this region a relationship closer to the
Powhatan than to the Nanticoke northward, it may
mean that the Accohanoc or Accomac did not mi-
grate into the lower peninsula from its northern
base, but that they crossed Chesapeake bay near
the Virginia capes, tracing their expansion directly
from the Powhatan units with which they remained
in touch. Up to this point we have considered the
boundary features of the culture group which
became so well known as the Virginia or Powhatan
confederacy.
234 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
It is evident that the surmises of ethnology are
reasonable: that the Powhatan group bore close
resemblance to the Conoy and the Nanticoke. And
further, the culture connection is extendible in
larger terms to the Delawares. Among the hall-
marks of unity over the whole territory just noted
were the practices of cleaning the bones of the bodies
of chiefs and preserving their bodies or bones in
houses consecrated to the purpose, the burial ossu-
aries, the ^ranial deformation, idol ceremonies
directed to supernatural beings called okee, the new
fire rite, scratching rite, and the emetic at harvest
time in southern Mrginia and in North Carolina, a
priesthood-shaman order, and the monarchical form
of government. Many technical and industrial
traits showing forth in architecture, ceramics,
basketry, clay pipes, the featherwork, the elements
and utensils of maize, tobacco, and bean cultivation,
indicate the southern environment. Relationship
confronts us as a likelihood in other fields of activity,
such as warfare, fishing, and hunting. Harrington
records indications of Nanticoke influence upon
Delaware religion.
For instance, the relative shortness of the hunting
season, in contrast with intensity of agriculture,
the deer-drive and the practice of using fire in driving
game, the communal village hunt, in general all
savor of the southeast. Certain fishing practices
do also: the use of the basket- trap, killing fish by
poisoning the streams with vegetal juices, and
POWHATAN TRIBES 235
shooting fish with an arrow tied to a line, all being
customs attributed to the Virginia tribes in the past.
To the foregoing summary of Powhatan culture
traits may be added some whose southern affinities
are suggestively shown forth. These, to be sure,
cannot be classified dogmatically until tests have
been carried further. A very useful resume of
Virginia ethnology, based on seventeenth century
sources, is given by Willoughby,^ in which he con-
sidered a number of Mrginia religious institutions
to have been ''adopted from the southern Indians." -
We may add that a similar inference may be drawn
from the occurrence of such characteristics in \'ir-
ginia as the pot-drum used in dances: that is, a drum
consisting of an earthen pot containing some water
and covered with a piece of stretched hide, the
"roached" hair fashion affected by men, the dressing
of the hair among priests by shaving oft* all in front
except a visor-like ridge across the forehead, the
use of body decoration in the form of feathers stuck
on the skin which has been coated with a sticky oil,
wearing the dried head of an enemy, the weaving of
feather mantles, garments of the "poncho" type,
the absence of tailored garments, the moccasin of
one piece of leather gathered in one long seam
reaching from the toe to the instep, the ''reed,"
the conical metal arrowhead of historic times, the
^ Willoughby, C. C, The Virginia Indians in the Seven-
teenth Centur\', Amer. Anthr., N.s., vol. ix, no. 1, 1907.
- Ibid., p. 63.
236 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
"sword" or club with small pieces of stone set like
teeth along both edges, all remind the ethnologist
of certain well-known far-southern culture traits.
Such correspondences with the south would seem
to provide reason for making a conclusion, in fact
the main one arrived at, after going over the contents
of the Powhatan culture area, namely, that we have
a fairly recent migrant Algonkian group transformed
extensively by association with a southeastern group.
PRESENT DISTRIBUTION OF THE DESCEND-
ANTS OF THE POWHATAN GROUP
IN the tidewater region of eastern Virginia there
are at the present time some two thousand
descendants of the tribes originally constituting
the so-called Powhatan confederacy. Very little
attention has been paid to them by writers, whether
ethnologists, historians, or folklorists. Some indeed
have even assumed to deny their existence under
the implication of there being no longer pure-blood
Indians among them. Elimination, however, on
this ground would involve a maze of controversy,
for it would mean that many existing Indian groups
all over North, Central, and South America, main-
taining active tribal tradition, even government,
would be consigned to the anomaly of classification
as "whites" or "colored people." Nevertheless the
Powhatan descendants persist within the confines of
their ancient territory despite the efforts to crush
POWHATAN TRIBES 237
them that began in 1608, and which, after reaching
a climax during Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, have
continued to menace them, though with declining
force, until the present time.
For the purpose of presenting certain facts to
those who are interested in American folk-life and
Indian survivals, I have prepared the following notes
re-introducing the seven or eight "tribes" of de-
scendants that now survive out of some thirty local
groups originally forming Powhatan's "kingdom."
Some of the groups have been already investigated
by the writer for the Museum of the American
Indian, Heye Foundation, but for the whole region
there is need of actual exploration of their industrial,
social, and folkloristic properties. It will reveal
much that will elucidate the principles of race- and
culture-blending among American folk-communities.
PAMUNKEY
Of the remnant tribes in Virginia, the Pamunkey
have long formed the social backbone. They have
retained their internal government, their social
tradition and geographical position as the people of
Powhatan. Their village is one mile from the
station of Lester Manor, about twenty miles east of
Richmond. It comprises an area of some three
hundred acres almost surrounded by a curve of the
Pamunkey river. Much of it is a virgin swamp
which constitutes the tribal hunting ground (hg. 50).
As their village was the capital in Indian days, the
238 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Pamunkey under Powhatan figured most promi-
nently in the events connected with the founding of
Jamestown and the explorations by Captain John
Smith. Even after the disastrous but inevitable
wars of 1622 and 1644 in which the Powhatan tribes
were cut to pieces by English gunpowder and steel,
the Pamunkey still preserved their integrity as a
tribe and exacted a deed for their reservation from
the Virginia assembly in 1677.
This treaty is recorded in the Acts of the General
Assembly of Virginia. The present chief and council
retain a copy of it, which is quoted in the Virginia
Magazine of History and Biography (vol. v, pp.
189-195). It explicitly mentions the rights of the
Indians, permitting ''oystering, fishing, gathering
tuckahoe, curtenemmons,^ wild oats, rushes, and
puckwone.'" The treaty also alludes to the return
of white children and slaves among the Indians and
forbids any further enslavement of Indians. There
are known to have been subsequent records of deal-
ings with the Indians preserved in the archives of
King William Court House; but these were destroyed
at the time when, during the Civil War, the court
house was burned by the Northern troops and the
records in the clerk's office lost.
Thus having secured a home right to reside in
^ The term curtenemmons refers to the dock-plant grow-
ing on the river. In Chickahominy the word is cutlemoUy
an interesting dialectic variation, if the word is not per-
chance a derivation from English ''cut-lemon," which the
pod actually resembles.
POWHATAN TRIBES
239
11
s
16
240 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Fig. 2. — Ottigny Cook, son of Chief Cook, Pamunkey.
POWHATAN TRIBES 241
Fig. 3. — Captola Cook, Pamunkey,
242 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
(V
a
o
a
>,
>.
s
o
o
U
POWHATAN TRIBES 243
Fig. 5.— Chief William Terrill Bradby, Pamunkey.
(Photo, by Bureau of American Ethnology.)
244 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
a
o
o s
'tq
POWHATAN TRIBES 245
a
>.
>.
c:
a
U
/A
246 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
POWHATAN TRIBES
247
C
B
o
C
3
248 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
POWHATAN TRIBES
249
their old domains, the tribe settled down under its
own rulership, where it may still be found. The
reservation population has for a considerable time
approximated 150 souls. The Indians on the
Mattaponi river,
only about ten miles
from the Pamun-
key, appear to have
been closely affili-
ated with the Pa-
munkey, and the
recent history of the
two bands has been
practically identi-
cal. There are
about 75 in the
Mattaponi village
near Wakema; they
are completely
merged in blood
with the Pamun-
key, through inter-
marriage, and no differences in community life can
be observed between them. The Mattaponi are
also reservation Indians; their deed, in the posses-
sion of the chief, dates also to 1658. The two
preceding bands are the only ''reservated Indians,"
as they quaintly style themselves, in the state.
Types of the group appear in figs. 1-14.
The interesting band of Pamunkey Indian
Fig. 11. — Jim Bradby, Pamunkey.
250 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
descendants has been persistently ignored by serious
investigators for reasons which are obvious but not
good. Dwelling on their own land continuously
since their
complete de-
feat about
1676, the rem-
nants have
kept up their
tribal organi-
zation and to
a degree their
economic life
without inter-
ruption or in-
terference, al-
though they
have lost en-
tirely their
language, their
social and cer-
emonial cul-
ture. The
little group
has numbered
about 150
souls for many
years with-
out much change, as mentioned. Had they, how-
ever, been able to keep together without the
Fig. 12. — Pamunkey hunter with skin of an
otter just killed.
POWHATAN TRl BES
251
young men having to emigrate to the cities to
find employment, the number would now be much
larger. Many have married outside of the tribe
and moved away, for Pamunkey law allows a man
of the tribe to bring his alien wife to the reservation,
but a girl who marries an outsider has to depart and
reside off the res-
ervation. More-
over, any Pamun-
key individuals
who leave the town
for two years with-
out returning, be It
only for a short
time, forfeit their
privileges as tribal
members. Hence
the Pamunkey,
like the other sur-
viving units of
Virginia, are not
dying out, but
being absorbed In
the general population. Such a process Is for senti-
mental reasons unfortunate, but It Is Inevitable.
The loss of the native language among all the
Virginia remnants has been complete. Save for
half a dozen words or so, mostly names of local flora
and fauna, nothing remains. This situation is com-
parable to cases elsewhere in the East, such as that
Fig. 13. — Bob Miles, Pamunkey.
252 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
of the Huron of Lorette, Province of Quebec, whose
tongue has succumbed to French; the Algonkian
remnants in southern New England, and the
Catawba of South Carolina, all of whom now speak
only English. One
might be inclined to
suspect that such a
condition is associated
in some way with ne-
groid miscegenation
were it not for the
instance of the Huron-
Iroquois of Quebec,
whose mixture has been
almost exclusively with
the French. The only
linguistic material we
now possess, and this
is only in glossaries
except for half a dozen
short sentences, is to
be found in Smith's
narrative and in
Strachey's History of
\ irginia. Since those
times only some isola-
ted words of question-
able origin have been recorded from the Pamunkey
by Dalrymple and from Xansamond by Mooney. At
Chickahominy a short list of terms was given me
Fig. 14. — Paul Miles, Pamunkey,
in dance costume.
POWHATAN TRIBES 253
several years ago. Most of them, however, proved
to be Ojibwa.
Among the Pamunkey a few native practices of
great interest have been preserved from the past.
They distribute their time between farming, fishing,
and hunting. They raise the original native crops,
they haul seine and trawl lines, and pursue deer,
raccoons, and wild turkeys and other wild fowl on
their famous river, and maintain their hunting terri-
tories for the taking of fur and meat in the primeval
swamp forming part of their reservation. Native
snares and dead-fall traps still compete with modern
methods of taking game. Only within the last
twenty years have the hunters abandoned the use
of the log dugout pirogue, though one may still
be seen.
Of native arts the Pamunkey have preserved the
manufacture of their distinctive clay pots and pipes,
and have even preserved that egregious technique,
turkey-feather knitting, as well as declining phases
of basketry and bead-working. And tribal govern-
ment continues. Some dances and costume per-
formances of a social and carnival character are part
of their tradition. I have prepared an account of
these properties of the Pamunkey and Mattaponi
which is waiting its call to appear in print.
254 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
MATTAPONI
For good reasons the Mattaponi^ may be classified
definitely as a branch of the Pamunkey. They
have not only an absolutely identical cultural
foundation, but are a member of the same original
political body divided from the main body by a
distance of ten miles, and occupying land which
was evidently a portion of the original tract reserved
under the name of Pamunkey reservation. Their
present reservation of almost 75 acres is on the
south bank of the Mattaponi river, near the hamlet
of Wakema. Their own settlement is called Indian
Town (fig. 25). It is a compact picturesque village
of whitewashed houses on a high blufT above the
river and commands a fine view. Types of the
group appear in figs. 15-24.
There is a tradition at Pamunkey that the land
intervening between the two reservations was sold
for a barrel of rum. Mrs. Page, who in 1920 was
83 years of age, said that this was the understanding
among the people of her generation. She was born
at Mattaponi and asserts that Billy Major, her
mother's father, who died about 1845, could speak
Indian. At Pamunkey there were at the time
several in the families of Mush and Gunns who, it
is claimed, knew the language.
The Mattaponi records in existence comprise a
deed, according to Chief Custalow, referred to in a
letter from L. C. Garnett, Assistant Attorney
^ The accent is on the i, pronounced as ai in aisle.
POWHATAN TRIBES 255
Fig. 15. — Lee Major, Mattaponi, wearing native hat made of duck-
skins. {Photo, by War field.)
17
256 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
POWHATAN TRIBES 257
s
*s
a
■t->
I
258 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
^
POWHATAN TRIBES
259
General, June 26, 1916. Through this instrument
the Mattaponi lands were confirmed to the Indians
in 1658, it is stated in the letter, by the Governor,
Assembly of Virginia, Indian, Colonial and State
Laws.
Thomas Jefferson made several remarks con-
cerning the Pamunkey and the Mattaponi, one being
that there were
none of pure
blood living in
his time, 1781,
and that the
language had
disappeared.
H i s records,
however, bear
indication o f
being neither
extremely ac-
curate nor
carefully con-
sidered, even
from the his-
torical point
of view. It is doubtful whether he had an opportu-
nity to do more than observe some of the natives
at long range.
The Mattaponi have not been conspicuous in
literature. Po llard^ in 1894 quoted Dr. A. S. Gat-
^ Pollard, J. G., The Pamunkev Indians of Virginia,
Bull. 17, Bur. Amer. Ethnol., Washington, 1894.
Fig. 19. — Mattaponi woman.
260 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
(L)
a
a
a
<
POWHATAN TRIBES
261
schet as saying there were 35 or 40 Indians there.
He also believed that they were a branch of the
Pamunkey.
In 1907 Mooney^ took a census of the members
of the band in his Powhatan survey, enumerating
Fig. 21. — Mattaponi man and Chickahominy wife and children.
40 souls and the following family names: AUmond,
Collins, Custello (Costello), Langston, Major, Ried,
and Tuppins. But now by birth and migration
they have increased to about 75. Mooney's remarks
1 Mooney, James, The Powhatan Confederacy Past and
Present, Amer. Anthr., vol. ix, no. 1, 1907.
262 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
concerning their condition and their occupations
hold true today as well as then. The community
is less in touch with the outside world than the
Pamunkey, and so exhibits a somewhat more rural
aspect of culture than the other groups, excepting
perhaps that at Adamstown. There is much
i ntercou rse
between the
M a 1 1 a p o n i
and Pamun-
key, several of
the families
having a com-
mon origin.
The ques-
tion of priority
is rather inter-
esting here.
The original
families, that
is to say those
]\ I a 1 1 a p o n i
whose members have not resided off the reservation,
have dwindled to two individuals according to the
assertion of these two themselves, namely, Nanny
Tuppins and Powhatan Major (figs. 17, b; 20, b).
The assertion is validated by tradition, for it seems
that the population consists for the rest of descend-
ants of the adopted Pamunkey families and, what is
more interesting, several Indians from the Powhatan
Fig. 22. — John Langston, Alattaponi.
POWHATAN TRIBES
263
groups lower down toward the bay. Among them,
for instance, the ancestor of the Allmonds is known
to have been a native of the band of Powhatan in
Gloucester county. The grandfather of this family
came from near Gloucester Point on York river,
nearly opposite Yorktown. Descendants of this
band are said to be still on the spot and to have a
separate school. I have not, however, visited them
to verify the statement.
Fig. 23. — Mattaponi girls.
ADAMSTOWN OR UPPER MATTAPONI BAND
One of the most important of the hitherto little
known and unrecognized bands resides below
Aylett's landing, south of Mattaponi river, about a
mile inland. The district is called Adamstown from
264 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
the large number of the Adams family (fig. 20, a).
They are citizens and have independent holdings
near a large swamp which harbors considerable small
game. On Captain John Smith's map of 1612 their
location corresponds correctly with a village marked
Fig. 24. — Mattaponi boys.
on his chart as Passaunhick. i\rcheological surface
surveys in the neighborhood evidence an extended
and numerous original population, and the Indian
blood of the inhabitants, their Indian tradition of
descent, and consciousness of their Powhatan affili-
ation, leave little room for doubt that this group of
about 75 individuals exhibits what is left of the tribe
POWHATAN TRIBES
265
belonging on the upper Mattaponi river. For this
reason I have chosen, after consultation with Mooney
and Chief Cook, to refer to them henceforth as the
Upper Mattaponi band. It should be noted, how-
ever, that even the oldest among them know of no
specific name ever being applied to them, save that
of Adamstown Indians. Even before the Civil War
they were free. There is no remembrance of slavery,
Fig. 25. — Part of the Mattaponi Indian town seen from the river.
nor could we find any evidence of the people here
having been ''owned" during slave days, either in
local records or among the old white inhabitants
whose recollection extended back to ante-bellum
days. There is little more that can be said con-
cerning the history of this small group. Yet con-
siderable folklore and fragmentary ethnological infor-
mation remain to be harvested. During Mooney's
contact with the Powhatan enclaves he frequently
266 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
had occasion to think of the Adamstown people, and
in 1907 he noted their existence in the following
terms, referring to the detached bands of Powhatan
origin scattered through the tidewater counties:
What seems to be the largest of these, according to
Pamunkey information, resides on Mattapony river, about
Aylett postoffice in upper King William county, the
principal family names being Adams and Holmes. They
are said to number about 40 in all, and to be in a very
backward condition as compared with the Pamunkey, with
whom they have little communication, although sometimes
visiting the Mattapony.^
Having been recognized for many years as Indians
by the state school authorities, the Adamstown
people have ahvays been allowed a separate school.
At present (1923) they are effecting an Indian
organization like the other awakening Powhatan
divisions.^
Through Jasper Adams, one of their leaders, the
following list of families is given as representing
those considered eligible for membership in the
organization. It represents their present numerical
strength. Of a total number of 77 persons, more
than three-fourths bear the name of Adams, other
family names being Hincher, Mills, Dundjie, and
Acree. They claim that formerly the Adams family
had the name Holmes, that a white man named
Adams, just before the Civil War period, settled
1 Mooney, op. cit., p. 151.
2 Their organization was effected on July 4, 1923, with
an enrollment of 77, under Jasper Adams as chief.
POWHATAN TRIBES 267
with the band and gave his name and identity to
most of the members. Joe Adams, who died in
1920, at an age of about 78, is thought to have been
capable of pronouncing some native Indian words.
This old man wore his hair long enough to reach his
shoulders, one of the marks of identity in the region
by which the Indian descendants distinguish them-
selves from negroes and mulattoes.
It might be added by way of a suggestion as to
their original identity that the Adamstown tribe
may represent descendants of the Nantaughtacund
unit of Smith's time, as Mooney thought of the
Rappahannock, to whom the Adamstown people
are partly related.
CHICKAHOMINY
On both shores of Chickahominy river, from its
mouth to White Oak swamp where its waters rise,
lived the Chickahominy tribe in apparently the most
populated section of the Powhatan area (figs. 51, 69).
Their descendants (figs. 26-36) occupy the same
region, though they have no reservation. The
Chickahominy headquarters, their first school and
church, are at Samaria, a few miles from Roxbury
in Charles City county. Recently some families
have moved eastward toward the lower river, where
the fishing is better, to the vicinity of Windsor
Shades or Boulevard. Another Chickahominy
church has been founded at the latter place and a
school established.
This tribe offers a problem in its political and social
268 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Fig. 26.— William H. Adkins, Chickahominy chief (died 1921).
(Photo, by Bureau of American Ethnology.)
POWHATAN TRIBES
269
Fig. 27. — Chief O. \V. Adkins, Chickahominv. (Photo, by Bachrach,
1923.)
aspects, which seem to have been somewhat different
from those of the Pamunkey. That they were not
completely unified with Powhatan, we have occa-
270 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
sional testimony. Mooney^ summarizes the situ-
ation briefly: ''The powerful Chickahominy, how-
ever, although accepting him [Powhatan] as over-
lord maintained their own home rule, and took an
opportunity to
put themselves
under the pro-
tection of the
English."
Stracheyadds
that this group
formed a na-
tion so remote
from being
Powhatan's
subjects that
they were even
his enemies.
Again he de-
scribes them as
a warlike and
free people who
paid tribute to
Powhatan but
who would not
allow them-
''wirowances"
Fig. 28.— Mrs. Thomas Adkins,
hominy woman.
Chicka-
any
selves to be governed b>
(chiefs) from him.
In 1613 thev went so far as to renounce their
Op. cit., p. 136.
POWHATAN TRIBES 271
^JB . -
:| ^^ .^^.^#1'
^g
^
18
^
272 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Fig. 30. — Robert Bradby, Chickahominy of
Windsor Shades, \'a.
allegiance t o
Powhatan, and
appealed to the
English, whom
they called
Tassautessus
Uttasantasough,
''shirt wearer,"
to allow them
to use that
name for them-
selves, as a sign
Fig. 31. — Chickahominy girls.
POWHATAN TRIBES
273
'^.
O
o
IS
O
274 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
a
S
S
o
Is
U
Si
a
pa
c
a
o
I
POWHATAN TRI BES
275
of affiliation.^ We also learn from Smith^ that
the Chickahominy were governed by a body of
priests and eight elders, and that their headman
was called mangoap (which I venture to analyze
as ''great man": mango, great, -ap {-ape), man)
Fig. 34. — Chickahominy children, with native splint basket.
in contrast to the Powhatan proper who em-
ployed the term wirowance (probably meaning ''he
is rich") for their chiefs.^ A number of other points
^ Smith's account of Virginia in Tyler, L. G., Narratives
of Early Virginia, New York, 1907, p. 310.
2 Ibid., p. 311.
3 Strachey, op. cit., p. 61.
276 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
of minor differentiation might be mentioned, one
being that the several Pamunkey native names of
tribes are not known here. On the basis of the slight
culture differentiation I have marked on the chart
by a shaded line the Chickahominy apart from the
Powhatan
proper. The
Chickahominy
still offer a
field of inves-
tigation. A
number of
economic sur-
vivals and
much folklore
are accumula-
ting as the
basis for a
monograph on
the tribe.
Some words
/ supposed t o
ttt^ -2? nu- ^ ^ ' be a relic of
Fig. 3,5. — Chickahominy woman.
the language
have also been obtained to show that the Chicka-
hominy have been about the most conservative of
the Virginia bands.
Mooney, in 1907, published the following list of
family names of this tribe which does not need much
alteration: Adkins, Bradby, Canada, Cotman,
POWHATAN TRIBES
277
Stewart, Holmes, Jefferson, Jones, Miles, Swett,
Thompson, Wynne. They numbered 220 at that
time. In the following year the Chickahominy
Fig. 36. — Mrs. W. A. Bradby, Chickahominy.
effected a citizen Indian organization under William
H. Adkins, and have since continued it to their
advantage, strengthening their position and numbers
278 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
as well as their tribal consciousness. In 1923 they
numbered about 264, including the enrolled members
of the Chickahominy tribe, under Chief O.W. Adkins.
There are, however, 200 others, at least, whose claim
of descent is valid but who have not formally an-
nexed themselves to the tribal organization. In
Strachey's time they were estimated at 300, prob-
ably including only men. Their struggle to main-
tain social independence has been intense during the
last twenty years. They were even threatened with
violence by their neighbors. It would all furnish
material for an interesting chapter on contemporary
Virginia social development. With the Pamunkey
there has been some intermarriage, but no political
affiliation.
NANSAMOND
The largest group of descendants of the more
southerly Powhatan tribes is that which comprises
the Nansamond. They reside at Portsmouth,
Bowers Hill, near Suffolk, and in general about
Dismal Swamp. Their name has hardly disappeared
from the pages of history for more than a few years
at a time. Captain John Smith gave them a place
of prominence in his narrative, and a number of
entries since his day in literature connect them
closely with the past. In the last century they have
lapsed in numbers and strength through mixture
and dispersion, yet the number of those considered
as Nansamond descendants must be about 200,
POWHATAN TRIBES
279
according to J. L. Bass, their present chief. From
William W. Weaver and Mr. Bass in 1907 Mooney
recorded some information which he published.^
He noted that the men were mostly engaged in
truck-farming and as sailors, and that they numbered
about 180.
According to
most recent
information,
in March
1923, the de-
scendants or-
ganized a Nan-
samond I n -
dian Associa-
tion with 58
enrolled mem-
bers to coop-
erate with the
other organ-
ized bodies of
Indians in the
state. Their
principal fam-
ily names are Bass (fig. 37) and Weaver, from whom
are descended others: Bateman, Bond, Brady, Bright,
Cable, Collins, Craigins, Gaylord, Gray, Green,
Harmon, HoUoway, Howard, Jones, Okay, Osborn,
Fig. 37. — Augustus A. Bass, Nansamond.
^ Mooney, op. cit., p. 150.
280 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Porter, Price, Rowland, Sawyer, Scott, Sebastian,
Simcoe, White, Wilkins, and Williams.
I might add that a detailed study of the Nansa-
mond is to be awaited with some interest. Until
this is made one can only entertain a suspicion of the
likelihood of some ethnological divergence from the
Pamunkey and Mattaponi pattern, since the Nansa-
mond are on the border of the North Carolina
coast Algonkian sub-area.
It may not be out of place to note that among the
ethnological survivals here to be investigated the
Nansamond preserve interesting information on
bear-hunting, which is still pursued in Dismal
Swamp, and wolf-trapping, of which tradition has
something to reveal. They also offer the usual
amount of surviving agricultural lore, and some
other topics under material culture, connected
with hunting, fishing, and the use of dugout canoes.
The latter are still to be found in their possession.
RAPPAHANNOCK
The northern divisions of the Confederacy are
represented by descendants on Potomac creek in
King George county, also in Wicomico county and
by a fairly large body scattered through parts of
Essex and King and Queen counties. The latter
living south of Rappahannock river were considered
by Mooney to be, in all probability, the remnant
of the Nantaughtacund tribe; but they now bear the
name Rappahannock (figs. 38, 39). It is possible
POWHATAN TRIBES
281
that there are as many as 500 of this classification,
though in 1923 the number forming the body known
as the Rappahannock Indian Association embraced
only some 200 who were carrying over the name and
tradition o f
the old tribe.
They were led
by Chief
George L. Nel-
son, who was
very active in
matters of In-
d i a n recon-
struction i n
Virginia.
Prior to their
renaissance
they were not
prominent in
colonial liter-
ature. The
Rappahan-
nock unit
shows evi-
dence of slight
divergence in
custom from
the Pamunkey and Mattaponi, with whom there
has been hitherto only an irregular contact. It is
quite unnecessary in this place to give further de-
FiG. 38. — George L. Nelson, chief of the
Rappahannock and of the reorganized Pow-
hatan Confederacy (1923).
282 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Fig. 39.— R. H. Clark, Rappahannock.
tails of the re-
suits of re-
search in the
history and
ethnology o f
this commun-
ity as the sub-
ject is treated
in a separate
memoir.^
POTOMAC
A small
group of fam-
ilies, whose
names are
mostly New-
ton and Green
(figs. 40, 41),
residue of the
have inhabited
Potomac river,
represent what may be the
Indians who are recorded to
Potomac creek, an affluent of
about eight miles north of Fredericksburg in
Stafford county. We have not, however, clear
proof that these descendants are actually of Potomac
identity, although they now bear the name. They
are not organized definitely, nor are their numbers
^ Speck, F. G., The Rappahannock Indians of Virginia,
Indian Notes and Monographs, vol. v, no. 3, 1925.
POWHATAN TRIBES
283
M
Fig. 40. — Luther Newton of the Potomac band.
known, except
for a rough
e s t i mate
which would
put them at
about 150.
Like most of
the tidewater
bands, they
are engaged
chiefly in fish-
ing. Hunting
has been dis-
continued only
within the
last twenty-
five years by some of them who followed it as a
profession. At present the Potomac group still re-
mains unstudied. As usual, considerable folklore
and some eth-
nological sur-
vivals may be
expected t o
reward the la-
bor of the pa-
tient investi-
gator.
An interest-
ing legend is
17 ii r-i f^u T3* T 1 related by the
Fig. 41. — Girls of the Potomac band. -"
f^
#
284 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
older people. A version from the lips of Luther
Newton, one of the more prominent men of the
band, is as follows:
One of the sons of Sir Isaac Newton was disowned by
his father for social misdeeds. In consequence of his dis-
grace the young man came to America to seek his fortune.
While passing through the newly-formed settlements in
Virginia, one day he found himself obliged to seek shelter
and food at the home of a planter on the edge of the forest.
As he rode his horse to the plantation gate a pretty little
Indian girl moved forward, opened the gate, and held it
for him to pass by. Struck by her beauty, he leaned
forward, took a ''piece of gold money" from his wallet,
and handed it to her, saying that some day he would come
back and marry her. He then passed on his way. A few
years later he found himself back in the same district and
approaching the gate where this event had taken place.
The Indian girl, now grown to young womanhood, was
before him again in the yard of the plantation. She took
from her dress the ''piece of gold money," and showing
it to him reminded him of his promise. Thereupon he
married her, and thus he became the ancestor of the
Newtons of Indian blood and their relatives and de-
scendants.
This event was said to have taken place in Orange
county, where the informant, to prove his story,
asserts that a plot of land belonging to his ancestor
still remains unsettled as to title.
Several other bands of Powhatan descendants
are waiting to be explored, about whom we now know
practically nothing more than the mere fact of their
location and family names. Some of them still have
POWHATAN TRIBES
285
independent schools and do not
colored people in school or church,
of these groups so far known, but u
nological investigators, is that divi
what is called
associate with
i\Iost numerous
nvisited by eth-
sion residing in
th
North-
ern Xeck" be-
tween the Po-
tomac and
Rappahannock
rivers. Chief
Nelson of the
Rappahannock
imagines that
there may be
500 individu-
als in this re-
gion and that
their life is
marked by ^^
some interest- Fig. 42. — Mollie Bladen, Accomack woman.
ing economic
conservatisms. They would be descendants of the
Wicomico.
The other group on York river is reported to in-
habit the neighborhood of Gloucester Wharf in
Gloucester county. The principal family names are
said to be AUmond, Morris, and Langston. In fact
their settlement bears the sobriquet of Allmonds-
ville. Their actual identity is uncertain, though
286 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
their location would correspond to that of the
Werowocomoco. The Allmonds of Mattaponi are
regarded as of this derivation.
If we now recapitulate, the estimated results for
1923 given me by the various chiefs show the
population of the Powhatan descendants in Virginia
to be as follows:
Number
Tribe Descendants When organized enrolled
Pamunkey 300 Tribal, on reser- 125 (?)
vation (1677)
Mattaponi 75 *' (1658) 75 (?)
Chickahominy . . 400 + 1908 264
Rappahannock.. 500+ 1921 376
Nansamond 200+ 1923 58
Upper Matta-
poni (Adams-
town) 78+ 1923 78
Wicomico (?)... 300+ (?)
Potomac 150 +
Hanover County 15 +
Werowocomoco . 100 + (?)
2118 +
THE POWHATAN CONFEDERACY
In dealing with the political life of the eastern
Virginia tribes one must attempt first an abridg-
ment of the voluminous details which have long
been published concerning the Powhatan Con-
federacy. Treatment has suffered from the disad-
vantage of having been brought out in chronicles
and papers not accessible betw^een one pair of covers
to the general reader. The essential facts, however,
POWHATAN TRIBES 287
bearing on the history and composition of this
interesting Algonkian monarchy were assembled by
Mooney in 1907.^ From his summary it appears
that the tribes of this group, which has been appro-
priately called the Powhatan group, held about
8,000 square miles, or one-fifth of the area of the
State of Virginia — in fact the whole tidewater
section.
Their western boundary was about the geologic break-
line marked by the falls of the principal rivers at Great
Falls on the Potomac, Fredericksburg on the Rappahan-
nock, Richmond on the James, and Petersburg on the
Appomattox, and thence following the Blackwater divide
by Suffolk to the coast. Strachey, indeed, if not also
Smith, makes Powhatan's dominion extend to the head of
Chesapeake Bay, but there is abundant evidence in the
early records that the Maryland tribes were enemies to
those of Virginia and held themselves independent. Those
on the eastern shore of \^irginia also seem to have been
practically independent, as might have been inferred from
the wide interval of water by which they were separated
from the others; but as they spoke the Powhatan language
and were within the Virginia jurisdiction, we may consider
them with the Powhatan Confederacy.
The twenty-eight Powhatan tribes enumerated in detail
by Smith as existing in 1607, numbered, according to his
estimate, about 2,385 fighting men; but as he omits from
this count the people of Warraskoyac and of several other
''king's houses" or tribal capitals indicated on his map,
we are probably justified in making it around 2,500.
Strachey, writing about 1616, makes it 3,320, but some of
his figures are plainly too high. Taking the lower estimate
^ Mooney, James, The Powhatan Confederacy Past and
Present, American Anthropologist, vol. ix, 1907.
19
288 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
we should have, on a reasonable calculation, a total popu-
lation for the confederacy of about 8,500, or about one
inhabitant to the square mile.^
Back of the Powhatan were other tribes of alien lineage
and hostile to the tidewater people. On the upper Rap-
pahannock were the confederated Mannahoac, and on the
upper James the confederated Monacan, both apparently
of Siouan stock and of ruder culture than the Powhatan.
Southwest were the Nottoway and Meherrin of Iroquoian
stock on the rivers of those names, and on intimate terms
with the kindred Tuscarora of North Carolina. Farther
toward the southwest, on the upper waters of the Roanoke,
were the Occaneechi, probably also of Siouan stock.
Beyond them in the mountains about upper New river were
the Mohetan, or Moketan, for whom we seem to have
but a single authority, of date 1671. The Richahecrian , or
Rickohockan, who came down from the mountains in 1656
and made bloody invasion of the lowlands, appear to be
identical with the Cherokee ,2 and can not fairly be con-
sidered a Virginia people.^
Following Jefferson, it is commonly said that the Pow-
hatan Confederacy consisted of 30 tribes. This is approxi-
mate, but not exact. Smith (1607), our first and principal
authority, names 28 tribes, giving the fighting strength
of each in his text but indicates on his map 36 "king's
houses," or tribal capitals. The whole number of villages,
large and small, within the territory of the confederacy,
^ An interesting side-light is thrown on the question of
Indian population in eastern Virginia by an estimate in
1650 of 30,000 natives, one-fourth of whom were men, in
that part of the colony lying south of Cape Henry. Cf.
Peter Force's Tracts, vol. iii, no. xi, by E. W. (possibly
Williams), London.
2 Corrected to Yuchi by the findings of Swanton, Early
History of the Creek Indians, Bull. 73, Bur, Amer. EthnoL,
p. 189.
2 Mooney, op. cit., pp. 129-131.
POWHATAN TRIBES 289
as shown on the map, is 161. A manuscript authority of
1622 says that the confederacy comprised "32 Kingdomes."
Strachey, about 1616, gives a list of 32 chief jurisdictions,
of which only about half are identifiable with those of
Smith's list. He assigns, however, two chiefs to the
Appamattock, four to the Nansamond, and three to the
Pamunkey, thus reducing the number of distinct tribes to
26. The census of 1669, by which time the natives had
been wasted by more than half a century of almost constant
warfare, has the names of only 11 of the Powhatan tribes
noted by Smith, together with five others apparently
resulting from shifting and new combinations of the broken
remnants. In 1705, according to Beverley, there remained
only six settlements in existence on the mainland and
nine on the Eastern shore, besides a few scattered individ-
uals, the whole numbering together some 350 men, or
perhaps 1,170 in all. Thus within a single century the
formidable Powhatan Confederacy had wasted to about
one-seventh of its original strength.
This result had been brought about by three Indian
wars — in 1622, 1644, and 1675 — together with constant
killings and destructions on a smaller scale; by a system
of clearances and man hunts inaugurated in 1644 and con-
tinued for some years; by smallpox and other epidemics;
and by the general demoralization resulting from sub-
jection to the conquering race.
Following is the statement of the Powhatan population
in fighting men, for the first century of colonization, as
given by Smith in 1607, Strachey about 1616, the Virginia
census of 1669, and Beverley in 1705. The discrepancy
in the names of the various lists is probably due to the
progressive combination of broken tribes under new names,
the abandonment of old sites, and the occupancy of new
villages.
290 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Smith Strachey Census Beyerley
1607 1616 1669 1705
1 Kecoughtans 20 30
2 Paspaheghes 40 40
3 Chickahamanians,
nearly 250 300 60 16 +
4 Weanocks 100 100 15
5 Arrowhatocks 30 60
6 Powhatan 40 50 10
7 Appamatucks 60 120 50 "not aboYe
seven
families"
8 Quivougcohanocks 25 60
9 Nandsamunds 200 200 45 20
10 Chesapeacks 100
Cassapecock ? 100
11 Youghtanund 60 70
12 Mattapament 30 140 20
13 Pamaunkee, nearly 300 300 50 40
14 Werawocomoco 40 40
15 Chiskiack 40 or 50 50 15
16 Payankatanke 50 or 60
17 Cuttatawomen I 30
18 Moraughtacunds 80
19 Rapahanock 100 30 "a few
families"
20 Cuttatawomen II 20
21 Nantaughtacund 150 50
22 Wighcocomoco 130 70 3
23 Sekacawone 30
24 Onawmanient 100
25 Patawomekes over 200
26 Tauxenent 40
27 Acohanock 40 40
28 Accomack 80
Additional "king's houses" on Smith's map:
1 Warraskorack 60
2 Orapaks 50
3 Opiscopank (on Rappa-
hannock)
4 Pissaseck (on Rappahan-
nock)
5 (on Potomac) .
6 Uttamussak ^ From SmJth and Strachey references it
7 Alenapucunt y appears that these were the three prin-
8 Kupkipcock J cipal settlements of the Pamunkey, Xo. 13
Besides the 18 names in Strachey's list which are
identifiable with names on Smith's list or map, Strachey
has also the following: Cantaunkack, 100 men; Munima-
pacune, 100 men; Pataunck, 100 men; Kaposecocke, 400
men; Pamareke, 400 men; Shamapa, 100 men; Chepecho,
POWHATAN TRIBES 291
300 men; Paraconos, 10 men — a total of 26 tribal jurisdic-
tions, estimated by Strachey to comprise 3,320 fighting men.
In addition to the 11 names in the census of 1669 which
are identifiable with Smith's list, the same census has also
the following: Powchyicks, 30 bowmen; Totas-Chees, 40
bowmen; Portobaccoes, 60 bowmen; Mattehatique (in-
cluded with Nanzcattico, alias Nantaughtacund) ; Appo-
matux (Westmoreland county and distinct from the tribe
on the river of that name), 10 bowmen — a total of 16
tribal communities with 605 fighting men, exclusive of the
Eastern shore, which is not noted.
Beverley gives definite figures only for the two or three
principal remnant tribes, but says that all the Indians of
Virginia together could not then raise 500 fighting men,
including the Nottoway and Meherrin, whom he puts at
about 130. This might leave about 350 for the Powhatan
tribes, including those on the Eastern shore, or from 1,150
to 1,200 souls.i
The political texture of the group appears to have
been that of an absolute and rather despotic mon-
archy, made up by conquest rather than by feder-
ation. The idea involved seems to have been an
advanced form of the governmental spirit latent
among Algonkian groups when they inhabit fertile
and populous regions. Its like was produced on a
smaller, though similar, scale in southern New Eng-
land and again apparently on the North Carolina
coast. It is most interesting to the student of abor-
iginal American government that among the tribes
of different lineage inhabiting the Atlantic coast,
we meet with every extreme ranging from virtual
anarchy, as among the Labrador Algonkian, through
^ Mooney, op. cit., pp. 132-135.
292 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
the village tribe, as in New England, the geograph-
ical and dialectically determined tribes, illustrated
by those of northern New England, the federal
league of the Iroquois, the monarchy as we have it
here in Virginia, and confederated nations, exhibited
by the Cherokee and the Creeks. All of them
appear, moreover, to be of relatively late origin,
well within the period of Columbian discovery.^
Returning to Mooney, we may quote —
When the English landed at Jamestown in 1607, the
Powhatan Confederacy was a thing of recent origin. Ac-
cording to Smith's statement, which is borne out by
Strachey, Powhatan, who was probably not yet sixty years
of age at that time, had inherited only the territories
of Powhatan, Arrowhatock, Appamatuck, Pamaunkee,
Youghtanund, and Mattapament, all the other tribes and
territories being reported as his own conquests. The six
original tribes occupied the territory extending some 25
miles around Richmond, and comprised some 520, or about
one-fifth of the approximate 2,500 fighting men under his
jurisdiction at the settlement period. Of these, the
Pamunkey outnumbered all the other five together, and
appear to have been the original nucleus of the confederacy,
which probably had its beginning about the same period
which Hewitt assigns for the formation of the Iroquois
league, viz, 1570. The essential difference between the
two was that, whereas the Iroquois league was founded
upon mutual accommodation and common interest, the
Powhatan Confederacy was founded on conquest and
1 Hewitt estimates the Iroquois league to have ger-
minated as late as 1570, and this became the pattern for
the Wabanaki Confederacy of subsequent date. Swanton
assumes the Creek Confederacy to have dated back to the
time of De Soto.
POWHATAN TRIBES 293
despotic personal authority, and consequently fell to
pieces with the death of the master, while the Iroquois
league still exists with much of the old-time form.
As an example of Powhatan's methods, we are told how,
in 1608, for some infraction of his authority, he made a
night attack on the Piankatank tribe, slaughtered all the
men who could not escape, and carried off the women as
captives. Some years before he had taken advantage of
the death of the chief of the Kecoughtan to invade their
territory, kill all who made resistance, and transport the
rest bodily to his own country, finally settling them at
Piankatank, which he had previously depopulated. In
the same way, on the strength of an ominous prophecy,
he had exterminated the entire Chesapeak tribe and
transplanted a colony of his own people in the desolated
territory. To make his position more secure, he placed
his sons or brothers as chiefs in several principal towns,
while he himself ruled in his own capital. From all ac-
counts, he was greatly feared and implicitly obeyed,
governing rather by his own personality than accord-
ing to tribal custom. The powerful Chickahominy, how-
ever, although accepting him as over-lord, maintained
their own home rule, and took an early opportunity to
put themselves under the protection of the English.^
Nothing could be added to this summary from
existing documents, though a remark by Strachey,
evidently overlooked by Mooney, is of considerable
importance. Strachey noted that the native name
of Virginia and likewise the term applied to the
confederacy was Tseiiacomacoh? This appellation
assumes much importance when attention is called
to its resemblance to the Algonkian term for "long
^ Mooney, op. cit., pp. 135-136.
2 Strachey, op. cit., p. 29.
294 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
house" or '' long ha.hita.tion' ' (kwen-akdmak^^')} The
same term is familiar to us in the native name of the
Iroquois league and also applies to the Wabanaki.^
As to the location of the tribes or towns listed
above, there exists sufficient reference in the various
colonial narratives for both IMooney and myself to
have indicated the same with considerable accuracy.
Our results are sent forth in the following table
and the chart (pi. l). Besides marking the habitat
of the minor tribal units, several culture margins
are outlined on the basis of material which has now
come to hand to be presented shortly.
Tribes of Tidewater Virginia, with Chief Towns, Men-
tioned and Located hy Mooney ^
Tribes Chief Towns
Tauxenent About Gen. Washington,
i.e. Mt. Vernon, Va.
Patowomeke (Potomac) Potomac creek
Cuttatawoman About Lamb creek on Rap-
pahannock river
Pissasec Above Leedstown on Rap-
pahannock river
Onaumanient (Onawmanlent) Nomony river
Rappahanock Rappahannock river, Rich-
mond CO.
Moraughtacund Moratico river
1 Algonkian phonetic mutations permit the change of
k to tc, ts. The translation of the rest of the term is simple
and clear after this consonant shift.
2 Speck, The Eastern Algonkian (Wabanaki) Confeder-
acy, Amer. Anthr., vol. xvii, no. 3, 1915.
^ Conference and correspondence, 1920.
POWHATAN TRIBES
295
Tribes
Secacaonie (SecacawonI)
Wighcocomicoe (Wicomico)
Cut tat a woman
Nantaughtacund
Mattapoment (Mattaponi)
Pamunkie (Pamunkey)
Werowocomico
Payankatonk (Payankatank)
Youghtanund
Chickahominie
(Chickahominy)
Powhatan
Arrohatoc
Kecoughtan
Appamatoc
Quiocohanoc
Warrasqueak (Warrasqueoc)
Nansamond
Chesapeak
Accomack (Accomac)
Chief Towns
Coan river
Wococomico river
Cowtoman river
Port Tobacco on Rappa-
hannock river
Mattaponi river
Romuncock, King William
CO.
About Roscows (?), Glouces-
ter — about opposite
mouth of Queen creek
Turk's Ferry
Piankatank river
Pamunkey river
Orapaks
Chickahominy river
Powhatan, James falls at
Richmond
Arrohatocs, Henrico co.
Roscows, Elizabeth City co.
Bermuda Hundred, Ches-
terfield CO.
About upper Chipoak
creek, Surry co.
Warrasqueak, Isle of Wight
CO.
About Chuckatuck, Xan-
semond co.
About Lynnhaven river,
Princess Anne co.
About Cheriton (Cherry-
stone inlet), Northamp-
ton CO.
Again let us refer to Mooney's study. The ensu-
ing sketch of the momentous 54-year struggle
296 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
between the advancing Virginia colonists and the
resisting Powhatan natives, correctly and graphically
covers the subject:
The displacement of the native tribes began almost with
the finishing of the first stockade. The English, being ill
supplied with provisions and not yet in position to procure
more by their own labor, proceeded to live off the country,
making constant demands which the helpless savages
were not strong enough to resist. For instance, a foraging
party was sent to Nandsamund to procure 400 bushels of
corn that the Indians had promised in order to save their
canoes, which the white men had seized and were coolly
chopping to pieces. It was now winter, and the Indians
pleaded that their corn was near spent — they had already
loaded the first visitors with as much as the boats could
carry — and that Powhatan had told them to keep the rest
for themselves. So, "upon the discharging of our muskets
they all fled and shot not an arrow. The first house we
came to we set on fire, which when they perceived they
desired we would make no more spoil and they would give
us half they had. How they collected it I know not, but
before night they loaded our three boats." Continuing,
they visited one town after another, but found all the
people fled until they reached Apamatuck, ''where we
found not much; that they had we equally divided,"
leaving the owners copper and other trinkets in payment.
On another occasion ''we, having so much threatened
their ruin and the razing of their houses, boats, and weirs,"
the frightened Indians promised, "though they wanted
themselves, to fraught our ship and bring it aboard to
avoid suspicion. So that, five or six days after, from all
parts of the country within ten or twelve miles, in the
extreme frost and snow, they brought us provision on their
naked backs."
The result of it all was that before the colony was two
POWHATAN TRIBES 297
years old the principal Indian settlements had been seized
by the white men, Powhatan had withdrawn from his
place within easy reach of Jamestown to a remote town on
the head of Chickahominy river, and killings and burnings
had become so frequent that no Englishman was safe alone
outside the stockade of the fort.
Open war on a large scale was deferred, however, until
1622, when Powhatan had been four years dead and his
brother Opechancanough had succeeded to the Indian
government. Pocahontas, for whose sake her father had
restrained his own hostile feeling, had died before him.
On March 22, 1622 (o.s.), Opechancanough began the
war with a simultaneous and unexpected attack upon
almost every settlement and plantation within the limits
of the colony, by which 347 men, women, and children
were massacred in the space of a few hours, most of them
without the slightest chance for defending themselves,
their lifeless bodies being mangled and abused in regular
savage fashion. The Indians of the Eastern shore took
no part in the massacre or the consequent war. The
people of Potomac also remained friendly until driven to
hostility by the massacre of a number of their people.
Immediately on receipt of the news at home, orders
were forwarded to the governor of the colony "to root out
[the Indians] from being any longer a people. . . . Where-
fore, as they have merited, let them have a perpetual war
without peace or truce, and, although they have desired
it, without mercy, too." Exception was made, however,
''for the preservation of the younger people of both sexes,
whose bodies may by labor and service become profitable."
Women were not included in this exception, but were
doomed with the men. To accomplish the extermination,
instructions were given to starve the Indians by burning
and spoiling their corn fields, to hire the neighboring tribes
to bring in their heads, and to organize and keep con-
stantly in the field bands of armed men to "pursue and
298 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
follow them, surprising them in their habitations, interrupt-
ing them in their hunting, burning their towns, demolishing
their temples, destroying their canoes, plucking up their
weirs, carrying away their corn, and depriving them of
whatsoever may yield them succor or relief." Special
rewards were promised for the seizure of any of the chiefs,
with ''a great and singular reward" to any one who could
take Opechancanough.
In January, 1623, the Virginia council reported to the
home office that they had anticipated instructions by set-
ting upon the Indians in all places, and that by compu-
tation and by the confession of the Indians themselves,
"we have slain more of them this year than hath been
slain before since the beginning of the colony."
By this war the Indians were so reduced in numbers
and means that for more than twenty years there was
doubtful truce, when Opechancanough determined upon a
final effort, although now so old and feeble that he was no
longer able to walk or even to open his eyes without help.
As before, the rising began with sudden surprise and
massacre, April 18, 1644 (o.s.), along the whole border,
but with the heaviest attack along Pamunkey river, where
the blind and decrepit but still unconquered chief com-
manded in person, carried about by his men from place
to place. The number of w^hites killed in this second
massacre is variously stated from 300 to 500, the dis-
crepancy being due to the fact that the colony was now
so well advanced and settlements spread out over so much
territory that exact accounting was neither so easy nor of
so much importance as in 1622.
We have few details of this war, in which this time the
advantage was so immensely on the side of the English
that the result is summed up in the report of the Assembly
in jVIarch, 1646, that the Indians were then ''so routed and
dispersed that they are no longer a nation, and we now
suffer only from robbery by a few starved outlaws."
POWHATAN TRIBES 299
The same Assembly authorized other expeditions and
the building of forts along the border. In the end,
Opechancanough was taken and brought to Jamestown,
where he was shot in prison by one of his guards. His
successor, in October, 1646, made a treaty of submission
by which the Indians agreed to abandon everything below
the falls on James (Richmond) and Pamunkey (near
Hanover ?) rivers, and to restrict themselves on the north
to the territory between the York and the Rappahannock.
In 1654, on occasion of another Indian alarm, a large
force was ordered against the Indians on Rappahannock
river, but no details of the result are given. In the next
year the Indian lands were made inalienable except by
permission of the Assembly. In 1656 a large body of
strange Indians, called Richahecrians (possibly Cherokee),
came down from the mountains and made camp at the
falls of James river, apparently to start a friendly acquain-
tance for trade purposes. A force of 100 men, however,
under Col. Edward Hill, was sent to drive them back.
Totopotomoi, chief of the Pamunkey, joined the expedition
with 100 of his own men. The result was disastrous.
The English were defeated, the Pamunkey chief and most
of his men were killed, and Hill was obliged to make
terms with the Richahecrians, for which he was afterward
brought to trial by the Assembly.
In 1675 came another Indian war, involving Maryland
as well as Virginia, and known in history as Bacon's
Rebellion from the fact that the leader of the Virginia
volunteers acted in direct opposition to the colonial
governor, Berkeley. The immediate cause was a series
of small raids upon the Virginia frontier by Indians from
Maryland, either refugees fleeing before the Iroquois, or, ac-
cording to Beverley, instigated to mischief by the jealousy
of New York traders.^ A force of 1,000 men, including
^ Mooney later became convinced that these Indians
were Susquehannock who had been driven into the moun-
tains.
300 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
cavalry, was authorized against the Indians, and it was
made death, with forfeiture of estate, to sell, directly or
indirectly, powder or firearms to Indians. The tribes most
concerned were the Susquehanna (Conestoga) and Doeg
(Xanticoke ?) of Maryland, with the Occaneechi and
others of western Virginia. The broken Powhatan tribes,
under the woman chief, Queen Anne of Pamunkey, took
no part in the hostilities, but suffered, as usual, in the result.
In 1677 the war was brought to a close by a general treaty
of peace with all the tribes in relation with the Virginia
government, by which they submitted to the English
authority and were confirmed in the possession of their
tribal lands, subject each to an annual quit-rent of three
arrows and a tribute of beaver skins. ^ At the same time
they bound themselves to give immediate notice of the
appearance of any strange Indians on the frontier, and to
be ready to furnish a quota of men when required to
serve against an enemy. The queen of Pamunkey, widow
of Totopotomoi, already mentioned, was recognized in
certain special dignities. The signatory tribes were the
Pamunkey, Appamattoc, Weanoc, Xansemond, Xan-
taughtacund, and Portabaccos — all of the old Powhatan
Confederacy; with the X^ottoway, Meherrin, Monacan,
and Saponi.
This treaty may be considered to mark the end of the
Indian period. Henceforth the dwindling tribes appear
chiefly as appealing for protection of justice, the chronic
grievance being trespass upon their reserved lands. From
various references it is evident that Indian slavery was
common even after peace had come, and this probably
hastened the process of intermixture with the negro race.
Their last appearance in treaty negotiations was at Albany,
^ The Pamunkey continue to this day to carry their
"tribute," as they call it, of venison, fowl, and fish to the
Governor at Richmond. This is done about Christmas
time, but it depends upon their ability to make a successful
deer hunt.
POWHATAN TRIBES 301
in 1722, when, through the efforts of the governors of Xew
York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, the Iroquois made
definite promise to refrain from further inroads upon the
Virginia tribes, among whom were named the Nansemond,
Pamunkey, and Chickahominy, with the Nottoway,
Meherrin, and Christanna Indians, under which last
name were included the remnants of the Siouan tribes of
the East.^
POLITICAL LIFE
Powhatan had a great deal of authority as chief.
He assumed to such an extent the prerogatives of
his ofifice that in no region known in eastern North
America was there any stronger semblance to a
native monarchy.^ Details are lacking as to his
predecessors and the character of their government,
yet it might be inferred that if any rigid inheritance
ruling had characterized the oi^ce of Powhatan it
would have been referred to by someone at the time,
since much importance was attached to the concept
of sovereignty in the minds of the English royalists,
w^ho w^ere indeed greatly impressed, and we may
imagine unduly, by the pomp of the Indian king.
Certainly the Pamunkey did not maintain the idea
of royal descent in the sense in which it was under-
^ Mooney, op. cit., pp. 136-141.
2 A recent bold and original evaluation of the events
recorded in the contact between the Virginia Indians and
the Colony from an Indian point of view and an inter-
pretation of Powhatan as an emperor, will be found in
William Christie MacLeod's The American Indian Frontier
(The History of Civilization, ed. by C. K. Ogden), New
York, 1928, chap. xiv.
302 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
stood by the English, for Powhatan's mantle fell
upon Opekankanough, supposed to be his brother,
and not upon his sons who were well known.
The line of succession following Opekankanough
is not well enough known for us to reconstruct any
scheme of transfer right. Nevertheless, from the re-
corded fact of descent from Powhatan to his sisters'
Fig. 43. — The so-called "Opechancano" mound on the Pamunkey
reservation.
sons, we might infer that it was of the usual east-
central Algonkian pattern, often materially inherited
and open to whatever development might be made
of it. Powhatan accordingly seems to have been
more of a demagogue than the usual Algonkian
chiefs of history — Tecumseh, Pontiac, Philip, and
Uncas.
POWHATAN TRIBES
303
Pamunkey succession from the time of Totopo-
tomoi's widow, about 1677, is broken by a gap,
as the Indians did not know how to write and their
councils were not recorded.^ Referring to traditions,
however, and written proceedings still extant among
the tribal papers, we find the names of
H. Langston Tazewell, elected life chief from 1850-1858
Thomas Cook, elected life chief from 1858-1880 ^
Thomas Langston, chief from 1880-1890
William Bradby, chief from 1890-1894
Charles S. Bradby, chief from 1894-1898
Theo. T. Dennis, chief from 1898-1902
George M. Cook, chief from 1902-
--^*'%%.. **'
V
m^^
Fig. 44. — Pamunkey homestead— residence of Chief Cook.
^See Appendix, page 453.
2 Dr. W. Franklin Jones, of Richmond, states from
records of June 5, 1865, that Thomas Cook and Thomas
Sampson were reelected head men of the tribe.
20
304 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
The present chief, George M. Cook, has been
reelected continuously since. His authority is
fairly strong, even surprisingly so in view of pre-
vailing conditions. As in former times he is now to
a marked degree the host of the village. Visitors
are cared for by him; and sometimes, it may be
added, his burden is considerable and his compen-
sation meager, especially when they happen to be
ethnologists.
At present the Pamunkey elect their officers after
a procedure which has come down through direct
tradition. When the candidates for an office have
been chosen, the name of one is mentioned before
the council and someone is appointed to carry around
to those present a handful of beans and a handful
of corn grains. Each member present is given a
bean and a kernel of corn. The ballot is then called
for. If the member is in favor of the candidate he
drops a kernel of corn in a hat which is passed around ;
if opposed to the candidate he drops a bean in. The
contents of the hat are then counted. If there are
more corn kernels than beans, the candidate is
elected. Should there be more beans than corn in
the hat, someone else is nominated for election and
the procedure is repeated.
In 1894 Pollard recorded the same custom as
follows:
As regards the internal government of the Pamunkey,
the executive power is vested in a chief, while the legis-
lative and judicial functions are performed by the chief
POWHATAN TRIBES
305
"I
B
(1.
306 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
together with a council composed of four men. The chief
was formerly elected for life, but now both chief and
council are elected every four years by vote of the male
citizens. Their method of balloting for their executive
officer is unique. The council names two candidates to
be voted for. Those favoring the election of candidate
number 1 must indicate their choice by depositing a grain
of corn in the ballot-box at the schoolhouse, while those
who favor the election of candidate number 2 must deposit
a bean in the same place. The former or the latter
candidate is declared chosen according as the grains of
corn or the beans predominate.^
THE QUESTION OF THE MATERNAL CLAN
It is evident that in Virginia there was some form
of social grouping determined on the mother's side.
Yet the only evidence upon which this rests is a
statement by John Smith attributed to Powhatan,
as follows:
His kingdome descendeth not to his sonnes nor children:
but first to his brethren, wherof he hath 3. namely
Opitchapan, Opechancanough, and Catataugh, and after
their decease to his sisters. First to the eldest sister,
then to the rest: and after them to the heires male and
female of the eldest sister, but never to the heires of the
males.2
In another place Smith repeats as follows:
Powhatan hath three brethren, and two sisters, each of
his brethren succeeded other. For the Crowne, their
heyres inherite not, but the first heyres of the Sisters, and
so successively the weomens heires. For the Kings have
^ Pollard, op. cit., p. 16.
2 Tyler, Narratives, op. cit., p. 115.
POWHATAN TRIBES 307
as many weomen as they will, his Subjects two, and most
but one.i
We may use these remarks as far as reasonable
speculation will permit. Swanton^ thinks that
they have probability in their favor as bearing upon
the maternal social organization in Virginia. It
would have been unusual if the Powhatan tribes
had not acquired such a grouping in some form
through contact with the peoples on all sides of
them having a maternal determination. Their near
relatives, the Piscataway, and the Delawares, in the
seventeenth century after the period of contact with
the Iroquois,^ the southeastern or Gulf culture area
in general, and the Iroquoian companies, are char-
acterized by matrilineality. The whole question
of matrilineal descent among the eastern Algonkians
has still to be considered from an unbiased socio-
logical view^point, it seems.
LEGAL STATUS OF THE PAMUNKEY TRIBE
The Pamunkey, wath a resident population of
little more than a hundred, still preserve their
national independence under the privileges accorded
them by the State of Virginia almost two and a half
ilbid., p. 52.
2 Swanton, J. R., Social Organization of American
Tribes, Amer. Anthr., vol. vii, 1905, p. 666.
^ MacLeod, W. C, The Family Hunting Territory and
Lenape Political Organization, Amer. Anthr., vol. xxiv,
no. 4, 1922.
308 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
centuries ago. They enjoy the unique distinction
of being in all likelihood the smallest independent
nation in the world. Pollard's synopsis of the
political circumstances leaves nothing to be added. ^
In government the tribe is a true democracy, over which,
however, the State of Virginia ^ exercises a kindly super-
vision. The State appoints five trustees to look after the
interest of the Indians. No reports of these trustees could
be found on file at the office of the governor of Virginia,
and their only function that could be ascertained to have
been performed was the disapproval of certain sections in
the Indian code of laws. Laws thus disapproved are
expunged from the statute book. The tribe is not taxed,
but they pay an annual tribute to the State by presenting
through their chief to the governor of Virginia a number
of wild ducks or other game.
The chief and council are the judge and jury to try all
who break the law, and to settle disputes between citizens.
Their jurisdiction is supposed to extend to all cases arising
on the reservation and which concern only the residents
thereon, with the exception of trial for homicide, in which
case the offender would be arraigned before the county
court of King William county. The Indians claim, how-
ever, that it would be their privilege to use the courts of
the commonwealth of Virginia to settle such difficulties
as could not be efficiently dealt with by their own courts.,
provided such difficulty arose from a breach of a State
law. The writer does not know on what this claim is
^ Pollard, J. G., The Pamunkey Indians of Virginia,
op. cit., pp. 15-17.
2 Pollard adds in a footnote: ''The writer has been unable
to find any statute or judicial decision fixing the relation
of the tribe to the State." Dr. Jones (corresp. Nov. 21,
1928) calls attention to Acts of Assembly of Virginia,
1893-94 (p. 975), covering tribal laws similar to those on
the next page.
POWHATAN TRIBES 309
based. As may be seen from the printed transcript
(verbatim et literatim) of the written laws of the Pamunkey
which follows, they impose only fine or banishment as
penalties. There is no corporal punishment either by
chastisement or incarceration.
Tribal Laws
The laws of the Pamunkey Indian Town written here in
Sept. 25, 1887.
The following Laws made and approved by chief and
council men Feb. 18th 1886 for the Ruling of the Pamunky
Tribe of Indians.
1st Res. No Member of the Pamunkey Indian Tribe
shall intermarry with anny Nation except White or Indian
under penalty of forfeiting their rights in Town.
2nd No non-resident shall be allowed to be hired or
sheltered more than 3 months — and if anny person are
known to hire or shelter anny sutch persons shall pay
50c pr. day for every day over the above mentioned time.
Amendment. Should sutch person persons be quiet and
agreeable they may be hire 30 or 60 day under good
behavior.
3rd Anny person slandering another without sufficient
evidence shall be fined in the 1st offence $5 Second $10
and in the 3rd they are to be removed from the place by
the Trustees chief and councle men.
4th No nun-resident shall be taught in our free school
except the concent of chief counclmen or any other Indian
Tribe.
5th Anny party or person found guilty of stealing anny
thing be longing to anny one else they shall pay the party
for the amt. that are stolen from them and also shall be
fined from $1 to $5. 3rd time they are to be removed
from the place.
6th If anny person shall depridate or Trespass on an-
other ons premises and shall break down gates or destroy
310 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
fences or anny other property shall be made to pay or
replace all damages and if any miner are engaged in sutch,
their parent shall be responsible for their acts and each
and anny that are found guilty Shall be fined from $1 to $5.
7th be it known that each road of Indian Town shall
be 30 ft. wide and all person that has moved their fence in
the road shall have 30 days to move them out and if they
are not moved they are to be moved by the chief and the
councl men and the expence paid by the Tresspasser.
8th if anny citizen are notifide to attend anny meeting
and fails to do so without sufficient excuse shall be fined
from $1 to $1.50.
9th be it known that all the citizens age 16 to 60 of
Indian Town shall work on the road as far as red hill and
anny member refuse to work shall be fined 75c and Jacob
Miles to be Road Master and he to be paid $1 pr. year.
10th Be it known that no person be allowed to swear
on the high way of Indian Town and if so they are to be
fined from $1 to $2. (Amendment) 1st ofTence 25 2nd 75
3rd 100.
11th Be it known that anny person or persons seen or
known to be fighting upon the highways or else where of
Indian Town in the Town the one found guilty of first
breaking the peace shall be fined not less than $3. nor more
than $5 dollars.
12th Resolve that each male citizen of Indian Town
owning a piece of land shall pay $1.00 pr. year or the value
in produce to the Treasurer of Indian Town yearly for her
benefits.
13th be it known that the Hall Sein Shore of Indian
Town shall be rented out yearly for the benefit of the
Treasury of Indian Town and if anny person are known
to set anny obstruction in the way shall be fined $5 in
each offence.
14th If anny person owning a piece of land and do not
build and live upon it in 18m it shall be considered as town
property and the person shall be allowed 20 days to move
POWHATAN TRIBES 311
a;
a
o
312 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
what they has thereon off; then it shall be considered as
Town Property and the Town can allow any one else the
same privelege under the above obligations.
15th Anny person that become rude and corrupt and
refuse to be submissive to the Laws of Indian Town shall
be removed by the Trustees, chief and counclmen.
16th Anny person that are in debt to the town and
refuse to pay the amt. enoug of their property shall be
sold to satisfy the claim.
17th be it known that we shall have a fence law and
it shall be 4 ft. high on a ditch Bank and 5 ft. high on a
levil and the holes are to be 1 foot 4 in hole 2 ft. 6 in holes
3 ft. 8 in hole and Remainder to the judgement of the fencer.
18th An amendment to Resolution all male citizens of
Indian from 18 year upward shall pay $1.00 pr. year and
until the amt is paid they will not be given no land.
Besides these written laws, there are others which have
not been committed to writing, the most important of
which relate to the tenure of land. The reservation belongs
to the tribe as a whole. There is no individual ownership
of land. The chief and council allot a parcel of cleared
land of about 8 acres to the head of each family. The
occupant is generally allowed to keep the land for life, and
at his death it goes back to the tribe to be reallotted,
unless the deceased should leave helpless dependents, in
which case the land is rented for their benefit. The houses
on the reservation are individual property and can be
bought and sold at pleasure.
PAMUNKEY HUNTING GROUNDS
Perhaps the most striking feature of all in the
natural history of the modern Pamunkey comes
before us in the survival of the controlled hunting
and trapping rights: the custom by which each
hunter in the band controls an assigned and definitely
POWHATAN TRIBES 313
bounded area within which he enjoys the exclusive
privilege of setting his traps for fur-bearing animals.
Various phases of the practice of hunting and trap-
ping within restricted boundaries have attracted
attention among certain Algonkian tribes, to such an
extent that the custom may be regarded as forming a
more or less typical institution, with varied local
associations, among the northern branches of the
stock. Before discussing the significance and au-
thenticity of the Pamunkey case, however, I shall
first present purely descriptive material.
The present diminutive Pamunkey reservation of
about 900 acres contains two kinds of land. There
is a dry arable tract of about 300 acres which is
completely under cultivation for the usual crops of
corn, sweet potatoes, and other staple crops of this
part of Virginia's coastal plain. The district that
interests us, however, is approximately 600 acres
of virgin forested swamp. The usual arborescent
growth of the freshwater swamp of this latitude is
most strikingly exhibited over the whole area. The
swamp-gum, the sour gum, the swamp oak, maple,
magnolia, hackberry, poplar and their smaller
associates, crowd every foot of the floor of this
swamp, the only tree lacking to make it thoroughly
coastal Carolinian being the bald cypress. The
cypress seems to be represented by only a few
scattered clusters and individual trees at several
spots along the Pamunkey, though it is noticeably
abundant beginning at the next river southward,
314 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
the famous Chickahominy. When the ancestors of
the Pamunkey, about 1658, chose to reserve this
particular tract along the river for their final domain,
it must have been with a clear vision of their future
need of a territory where natural inaccessibility
would provide a haven for game more or less per-
manent and, to the agencies of the day, indestruct-
ible. The swamp extends for a distance of from 43^^
to 5 miles along the river and encircles about four-
fifths of the island-peninsula which comprises the
territory where the Pamunkey descendants still
operate their own form of political and economic
control.
Aside from its natural interest the swamp has a
distinct historical background, having been from
earliest traditional information divided into the
same six hunting tracts that we find still recognized
in the native land-laws of the tribe. These six
tracts are separated by the intervals between certain
well-known creeks, or lagoons, "guts" as they are
locally termed, which wind their way some distance
through the interior fastnesses of the swamp and
open out into the river. In each of these tracts one
of the hunters enjoys the right of pursuing his hunt-
ing and trapping activity without competition, and
free from trespass by his neighbors. These tracts
and the lagoons are shown with their names and
general contortions in a sketch by Paul Miles, one
of the hunters, in conference with his associates and
the chief. Such a chart, I may add, had never been
N
%■
I
INDIAN NOTES AND MONOGRAPHS
VOL. I. NO. 5, PL.
MAP OF THE PAMUNKEY RESERVATION SHOWING THE TRIBAL HUNTING GROUNDS IN 1920-21.
(after a drawing by PAUL L. MILES, PROPRIETOR OF TERRITORIES 2 AND 3)
Approximate Distance
Native Proprietors in 19eO-Sl : from River Shore
1. Tecuraseh Cook 1 mile
2. Paul L. Miles
3. " 1 mile
4. Ezekiel Langston 1} mile
5. Tecumseh Cook I mile
6. James Bradby i mile
Reservation water-front 4} miles
314
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POWHATAN TRIBES 315
made before by them; accordingly they showed no
little interest in preparing it. It is presented,
after redrawing for reproduction, in pi. ii, the only
addition to its original form being the lettering.
No. 1. The lagoon and marshes at the mouth of
Wash han creek, including the shore westward as
far as the railroad bridge, constitute the hunting
plot which we number one, known as the Wash han
grounds. The name is supposed to come from
''wash hands." On the eastern border the privilege
of use stops at the edge of a white man's land. This
territory has been for several years operated by
Tecumseh Cook, a son of the chief. There is little
more to be said of it, except that some high pine
woods are included in it, and that raccoons and
muskrats are the principal product.
No. 2. An extensive grassy marsh, separated by a
few hundred feet from the shore, is known as Dock
or Docks island from the plenitude of dock, the
favorite food of the muskrat, which grows on and
about it. Trapping there yields an abundance of
muskrats. The place is a resort of ducks in the fall
and winter. These grounds are worked by Paul
Miles.
No. 3. Adjoining number one, beginning on the
shore at the railroad bridge, hunting ground number
three follows the shore around the big cove and
landing place on the western side of the reservation,
and takes in the waters of Great creek and Small
creek. Great creek is its major lien. The division
316 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
line on the southern and western edge is between
Otter wallow and Turkey creek. Great creek is a
fairly rich plot and yields muskrats abundantly to
its proprietor. Ducks seek refuge in its murky
channels and turkeys are frequently shot from roost
out of the gum trees w^hich overshadow it. This has
also been controlled for some years by Paul Miles.
No. 4. Beginning with Turkey creek and taking
in several productive lagoons, called Crooked,
Spring, and Bills creeks, is a rather extensive forested
swampy district terminating at Hanger's gut. It is
considered more than a mile in extent from the river
back to high land. This is worked by Ezekiel
Langston, who is rewarded principally by an
abundance of muskrats, raccoons, and otters; he
supports himself entirely by fishing, hunting, trap-
ping, and corn raising, as do the other four families
whose men operate hunting grounds.
No. 5. What is considered to be the largest
ground extends from Hanger's gut to Swetts
landing, taking in Hog-pen and Cornfield creeks,
and Maple, Deep, and Raccoon guts. This is
leased by Tecumseh Cook.
No. 6. The small tract of timber swamp and
marsh from Joe gut to Williams creek is trapped by
Jim Bradby.
There are besides a number of other families who
live by the same industry which they ply at large
for the want of specific territories.
In one case at least among Algonkians in the north
POWHATAN TRIBES 317
the custom was followed of marking off the bound-
aries of inherited family hunting territories by
birch-bark signs. But here in Virginia no indication
of boundary signs occurs, for none is needed. The
creeks dividing the plots are so well known that
almost any boy of Pamunkey town can name and
locate them. Furthermore there are no social
associations involved in the possession of the hunting
grounds, for they are not now inheritable, nor does
tradition at Pamunkey point to an earlier different
or more complicated situation. We shall probably
never know whether or not the grounds were origi-
nally inherited in families. Each year the six hunting
grounds are disposed of by lease to any applicant
in the tribe who pays the rental. The decision and
right of assignment rest in the hands of the chief
and council. Generally in spring the annual assign-
ment is made. A somewhat similar case inciden-
tally is reported for the Nova Scotia Micmac. The
tracts lease nowadays for about forty dollars each.
Often one hunter will acquire two grounds, yet
sometimes all will not be rented, which of course is
advantageous, for then the next year's supply of
game is replenished after a season of repose.
The proprietary privileges include the use of the
old deadfall trap sets which are placed in the most
favorable spots on all the grounds (fig. 47). These
are the heavily constructed log-and-stake cabin
deadfalls set in the muddy runways where muskrats
and raccoons pass by to reach their feeding stations.
318 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Year after year these traps do their work, requiring
little repair, and some of them may still be seen
where they are known to have stood since the
Civil War. That the stationary deadfalls are
Fig. 47.
-Pamunkey deadfall for raccoons and otters,
manent set in Big gut.
This is a per-
aboriginal Pamunkey properties there is little doubt.
The natives prefer them to the modern steel-traps
because they do not rust, they never allow game to
escape minus a leg, and they do not damage the fur.
I shall describe them in more detail in another place.
POWHATAN TRIBES
319
In short we meet here another case of the phe-
nomenon exhibited widely among the northern
Algonkians. The case at hand is no more elaborate
and yet no less fundamental economically than what
is generally the normal thing in the northern Algon-
\S:
'^i^m
Fig. 48. — Pamunkey hunter rebaiting a aedJiciU on ohore of Great
creek. Muskrats, raccoons, and otters are taken here.
kian culture where hunting is dominant and where
native institutions have escaped annihilation. The
principal question arising is, How could it have so
escaped in Virginia after several centuries of English
contact?
21
320 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Whatever skeptical argument may be brought
forth with the intention of nullifying the importance
of the Pamunkey circumstances in a study of Algon-
kian economic institutions, we have to consider the
following confirmatory facts: (1) The institution of
the hunting territory is an inseparable factor among
the Algonkians proper where the chase is vital.
(2) We already have before us instances where the
social pattern has been adjusted to a paternal exo-
gamic type of society, as it appears among the
Ojibwa, as well as to a maternal clan organization
as among the southern New England tribes, although
material illustrating the latter has not yet been
presented in print. (3) The hunting territory, from
its general distribution and its fundamental char-
acter, crops out in different Algonkian areas under
modifications which, however much they may
diverge, are confined within such limitations as can
be well understood through consideration of envi-
ronmental factors. A certain deduction would seem
to emerge then from our survey: that the hunting
institution is a fundamental and an old Algonkian
trait. Hence the case presented by the Pamunkey
is a normal one except for some unusual facts, chief
among which are that the Pamunkey have lost so
much of their cultural background; that their habitat
is so distant from other Algonkians possessing the
feature in question; that the practice of agriculture
was on an equal footing with that of hunting. It is
furthermore somewhat puzzling that an Algonkian
POWHATAN TRIBES 321
institution so weakened by the rival activity of agri-
culture, even in early times, should have survived the
decline of native culture so long. On most of these
matters, however, there is some room for discussion.
A search through the narratives of the early
Virginia explorers fails to yield any definite informa-
tion on the existence of restricted hunting grounds
among the Powhatan tribes of the time. Yet the
remarks of Captain John Smith on the hunting
practices of the tribes of the low country might
apply as well to the people of the lower St. Lawrence
valley who carry on an annual movement from their
settlements along the coast to their hunting grounds
in the interior.
While the following statement from Captain
Smith is not explicit on the questions of inheritance
and privilege, it at least alludes to a form of terri-
torial subdivision which we recognize at once and
may build upon:
But this word Werowance which we call and conster
[construe] for a king, is a common worde whereby they
call all commanders: for they have fewe words in their
language and but few occasions to use anie officers more
then one commander, which commonly they call wero-
wances. They all knowe their sever all landeSj and habita-
tions, and limits to fish, fowle, or hunt in, but they hold all
of their great Wero wances Powhatan, unto whome they
pay tribute of skinnes, beades, copper, pearle, deare,
turkies, wild beasts, and corne." ^
^ Tyler, Narratives of Early Virginia, op. cit., p. 115.
The italics are mine.
322 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
In a subsequent chapter on fishing customs men-
tion will be made of the location rights which were
recognized in the placing of weirs or fish-traps near
the headwaters of the Pamunkey and Mattaponi
rivers. This is one of the few instances where we
find such regulations on the Atlantic coast, though
they are fundamental among the northwest Pacific
coast groups. Information coming from the Wa-
banaki tribes of the northeast seems to point to a
similar but weakened control of fishing stations in
the salmon area.^
John Smith again (1612) says: ''They leave their
habitations and reduce themselves into companies
and go to the desert places with their families where
they spend their time in hunting up toward the
mountains by the heads of their rivers where there
is plenty of game. For betwixt the rivers, the
grounds are so narrow that little cometh there which
they devoure not." ^ He adds the statement that
they travel three or four days' journey from their
habitations, which would carry them say 50 to 80
miles from the Chesapeake bay line. We may
imagine their best hunting grounds then to have
been in the general region of the falls-line between
the Piedmont and the Coastal plain, along the line
from Washington to Richmond. Captain Smith
refers in other places to the scarcity of game in the
^ The writer's unpublished manuscript on the Malecite
of New Brunswick.
2 Tyler, op. cit., pp. 103-104.
POWHATAN TRIBES 323
inhabited portions of Powhatan's country as due to
the size of the native population. The present
Powhatan survivors in Virginia reside well up toward
the rising land in what would be near the western
frontier of their habitat in the period when the
Monacan tribes occupied the foothills of the eastern
Blue Ridge. They evidently chose their best hunt-
ing resorts for their final abode. I think it quite a
plausible assumption, moreover, that certain Indian
district names encountered today at many points
along all the low-country rivers are reminders of the
old hunting district names.
In the survival of the reduced hunting-grounds
arrangement at Pamunkey after the country was
taken over by the English, the situation reproduces
what has developed among some of the Ojibwa
bands of the Lakes region. On the Gull Lake reser-
vation in Minnesota, for instance, when some years
ago the White Earth band was moved from its
reserve and placed with the Gull Lake band, the
resident population at Gull lake had to share its
hunting lands with the newcomers. As a conse-
quence the original Gull Lake districts which had
been under inherited family proprietorship were,
under the pressure of economic invasion, obliged to
be reduced in size very considerably to provide
hunting grounds for the aliens. It may accordingly
be surmised that, with the occupancy of their exten-
sive original domain by the English at the close of
the seventeenth century and their assignment to the
324 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
small reservation on the river, the Pamunkey recast
their hunting arrangements to coincide with the
reduced area, portioning the available land of the
reservation into miniature hunting grounds based
on the old plan. So it may be construed, at least
in accordance with the natural likelihood of the case
both from external and internal evidence. For the
latter the following may be considered:
If the above explanation of the change which has
taken place be accepted as tentatively adequate, we
can understand, by its aid, the reason for some of the
present district names applied to prominent locations
on Pamunkey river, as well as upon the neighboring
rivers in Mrginia which were inhabited by tribes of
close afhnity. The Indian names of these reaches of
the river and of some of the points on its shores are
still known in the neighborhood. These are ex-
tremely interesting. Just below the reservation is an
extensive marsh and forested swamp known as Co-
hoke, a name of fixed usage applied both to the
grassy marsh and to the swamp which is pictur-
esquely ''Cohoke low-ground." Cohoke is clearly
the original native district name. Although Cohoke
is owned by whites, it still harbors an abundance of
game which the Pamunkey regularly draw upon,
especially the deer which they take by the drive and
canoe, a method to be described later. Farther down
on the north shore of the river is also Takhoman
(tak^'^homan in the Pamunkey pronunciation).
This is a farm on very fertile land where the
POWHATAN TRIBES
325
presence of archeological refuse attests a former
Indian family settlement. On the opposite shore
of the river is Coosiak. Opposite the reservation
is Rickahock, a name common to each of the four
rivers of tidewater Virginia at some particular
reach of its course. Below still on the northern
shore near the railroad station of Romancoke is
the region known among the Pamunkey by the
Fig. 49. — Big bend in Pamunkey river; Uttamussak in the distance.
name Uttamussak, an old name appearing in the
records as Powhatan's ''temple" site and marked on
Captain Smith's map of 1608. On Mattaponi river
are similar locality names, and again on Chicka-
hominy and James rivers. Some of those on
Chickahominy river undoubtedly perpetuate Smith's
nomenclature.
My point, in short, is that these place-names
326 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
may be reminders of old geographical designations
for former hunting territories. District names
also occur attached to the family hunting territories
among the Indians of the interior Province of
Quebec.
When it is learned that a form of the characteristic
Algonkian hunting-territory institution is still in
practice among the Pamunkey, we might well wonder
what are the circumstances in which it could have
been perpetuated among the Powhatan descendants
until this day; for it is scarcely to be expected that
successful hunting could be waged by an Indian
band in a region like modern tidewater Virginia.
Suspicion has accordingly already been expressed
of its being a modern development in this particular
instance. But if we examine probabilities I think
we may be finally as much inclined to regard the
whole thing here as a native survival as to regard it
as being the expedient of more recent economic
conditions.
In considering further the occurrence of the
hunting-territory institution in Virginia, it might be
expected to have graded off to extinction in time and
place so remote from the sources of contact with
those regions and conditions which gave it existence
and where it still flourishes as a phenomenon associ-
ated with hunting and not with agriculture. In
seeking the nearest area where even a partly agri-
cultural Algonkian tribe exhibits the expected
feature, we are at a loss to settle upon the direction of
POWHATAN TRIBES 327
search. Northeastwardly the Massachusett and
Narragansett of southern New England undoubtedly
had their own modified form of the institution, since
something akin to it was recorded by Roger Williams.
This I have discussed as a proved case in a separate
paper. ^ But w^estward toward the habitat of the
Central Algonkians, where many features of material
culture, and no doubt of social life, had analogies
with those of the Powhatan group, we have a sur-
prising meagerness of evidence that the territorial
division was observed in any region south of the
Ojibwa of Minnesota. Both Dr. Michelson and
Mr. Skinner profess to have met with indications of
its former provenience among the Sauk and Fox, but
no more instances are forthcoming in spite of their
intensive knowledge of this culture area. Further
search may still reveal its memory, as I suspect will
possibly be the case, or else it has gone by the board
among the Kickapoo, Potawatomi, Menomini, and
the other central divisions through the acculturation
of economic agencies connected with agriculture
more enduring and more forcible than the uncertain
activities of the chase.
Some of the dubious qualities of the case just
mentioned are, however, answerable. One objection
arising against the originality of the hunting grounds
at Pamunkey, in particular, becomes weakened by
^ Territorial Subdivisions and Boundaries of the Wam-
panoag, Massachusett, and Nauset Indians, Indian Notes
and Monographs, misc. no. 44.
328 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
evidence directly at hand in Virginia. To attribute
the inception of the hunting-grounds custom among
the Pamunkey exclusively to an imitation of the
whites is manifestly a surmise aimed in the wrong
direction, for white hunters and trappers in colonial
times, and now^ as well, in the Southern and Middle
states are not known to have had the slightest
knowledge of such a policy of operation. In the
past, as well as now, they have been characterized as
unconfined wide-ranging pioneers and fur-traders
throughout. The remark might be added that only
in the northern regions, where practically all the
native tribes, both Algonkian and Athapascan, show
the territorial division among hunters as a funda-
mental trait of procedure, do we find white trappers
adopting the custom. While it accords completely
with the efficient arrangement of the Hudson's Bay
Company and other legitimate and conservational
trading concerns throughout the entire north, it
would probably be wrong to deny that the policy
was originally derived from the Indians themselves
and built upon their economic methods.
Hence the Pamunkey custom becomes worthy of
being regarded as somewhat more authentically
native in its conception, evidently being an old
Algonkian heritage which, like other vagrant prac-
tices recorded among the aberrant southern branches
of the family, has earned, through its practicability,
the right to survive two culture pressures — a
southern agricultural contact in the purely Indian
POWHATAN TRIBES 329
period of history, and later the holoclastic European
culture impact.
In respect to the antiquity of the hunting-grounds
division at Pamunkey, we have very little docu-
mentary testimony beyond the records preserved
among the papers of the chief and council which I
have consulted. These show decisively that the
assignment of hunting plots, the same in boundaries
as those now recognized, goes back as far as the early
part of the last century.
In the above account I have attempted to convey
the impression of the whole development as progress
was made in acquiring and coordinating the informa-
tion concerning hunting grounds at Pamunkey.
It might be added that my experience here was rather
similar to that which I recall in working with the
nomadic hunters of the far north. Some months
elapsed before I became aware that regulations
existed in the Pamunkey band. Slowly the matter
came to light after several months' contact, during
which time frequent hunting and trapping excursions
had been made with one of the proprietors. My
impression is at present fairly positive that the
Powhatan tribes, like their Algonkian kindred farther
north, operated their hunting industry on a general
plan of segregation and privilege. So henceforth
in our survey of American economic features the
Powhatan culture area deserves to be indicated in a
fairly well-established light as having possessed a
sporadic form of the hunting-territory institution,
330 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
to an extent certainly as positive as has been shown
only recently for the northern California peoples.
We may wonder if some vestiges may not yet be
found among records pertaining to the Delawares
beyond what MacLeod has produced.
HUNTING CUSTOMS
The marsh and swamp area of tidewater Virginia
is extensive. For many miles both banks of the
rivers are bordered by lowlands, which are inundated
by the tides. In nearly all the rivers this occurs
as far as 60 to 70 miles from Chesapeake bay.
Some of these tracts are marshy flats covered with
a growth of dock, rushes, and cattails. Others are
overgrown with virgin forests of cypress, swamp oak,
swamp gum, maple, and red birch. In the pictur-
esque vernacular of the region such are called "low
grounds." In some places the swamps extend con-
tinuously from one to three or four miles following
the windings of the river, and reach from a quarter
of a mile to a mile and a half back toward the higher
ground. The swamps provide cover for consider-
able game, and it is in these fastnesses that the
Pamunkey of today, as they did of old, pass much
of the time in gaining a livelihood. The marsh
flats provide feeding and roosting grounds for hosts
of wild fowl which engage the attention of the
Indians during the migration periods.
The Virginia deer have survived as the last of the
big game on the Pamunkey river, and some old deer-
POWHATAN TRIBES 331
hunting practices have continued to the present
time. The passing of the bear and beaver, however,
dates back earlier than the memory of the living
generations. Yet the bear lingers with surprising
persistence in the Great Dismal Swamp on the line
dividing Virginia from North Carolina. This im-
posing wilderness, however, is too far from the
haunts of the Pamunkey for them to know much
about it in these days, though the Nansamond
Indians, inhabiting its western and northern margins,
have something to offer in respect to bear hunting.
We may infer some similarity to have marked such
practices among the different town-tribes of the
Powhatan area. The bears of the Dismal Swamp
hibernate for only a short period, if at all; some say
for about six weeks. They secrete themselves in
large hollow trees to sleep. In the fall and early
winter the Nansamond seek to kill them because
they are fat. The bears resort to the gum groves
in the swamp to fatten on gum berries. They may
there be heard at a considerable distance breaking off
the branches. Then the hunters approach closer
stage by stage, moving forward when the animal is
unable to hear them because of the stir he himself
is creating. The Nansamond, however, like to
search for the hibernating bears, as, incidentally, do
most of the Algonkians. This tribe undoubtedly
has some reliquary customs and beliefs concerned
with bear hunting still to be recorded. To my own
knowledge they have the custom of cutting off a
332 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
bear's foot and fastening it over the house door;
one reason being as a luck-trophy. Another inter-
esting hunting practice is remembered by Nansa-
mond — wolf trapping by means of a pit. We turn
back, however, to the characteristics of Pamunkey
life; the other is for separate treatment.
So much do the marshes and swamps engage the
attention of the natives that they may be safely
said to furnish the influencing factor in the economic
life of the Chesapeake tribes. I shall have occasion
shortly to refer to the Indians' familiarity with the
conditions of mud which surround them on every
side in their hunting and fishing occupations. The
common geographical features of eastern Virginia
really have to be understood before the ethnology
of the tidewater tribes can be evaluated. It might
be added that in the opinion of the Indians there
has been a slight sinking of some of the river flats
within memory. Today Cherrycook marsh, a few
miles above the reservation, is a ''duck and fur"
marsh, where at high tide a canoe can be shoved
with a pole. This condition extends back some 30
years. Estimating from facts obtained by Chief
Cook, one concludes that about 1820 the same land
was dry and was cultivated in wheat and corn by
the father of Dr. John Braxton, a planter who owned
this land.
I might repeat that hunting is still a part of the
daily occupation of most of the Pamunkey men,
whether or not they be the proprietors of the rented
POWHATAN TRIBES 333
portions of the swamp. The daily fare is derived
largely from the chase in one form or another. In
the fall, winter, and spring almost every day wild
meat is consumed on the reservation. The hunters
are abroad during the early morning hours either in
the swamp to pick up muskrats, raccoons, or opos-
sums, or on the river to get chance shots at ducks.
Subsequent to these early-morning excursions they
lie about the house and rest until nearly noon, while
the women are dressing and cooking the meat. Then
comes the noonday meal, the first real one of the day.
Time has indeed brought little change in the eating
habits of these Indians, and, we might also infer, in
their domestic habits.
The numerous and far-flung ox-bows of the tidal
rivers bounding the marshes and swamps make the
distances by river much greater than by land. For
instance, the distance from Pamunkey town to
West Point, which lies at the junction of the Mat-
taponi and Pamunkey rivers, is nine miles by land,
but following the windings of the river it is more
than thirty. The windings of the Mattaponi just
across from the Pamunkey are correspondingly
tortuous. From West Point again to the Mattaponi
Indian town it is twenty-three miles by river, but
ten by land. The Mattaponi is navigable for small
tugs, and a small freight and passenger steamer, the
Louise, plies a route twice a week for forty-two miles.
The configuration of this whole region is admirably
shown on Captain Smith's chart of 1612. It is
334 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
actually still serviceable for the navigation of the
Mattaponi river. By comparison with recent Gov-
ernment charts, every bend, every marsh, and even
the location of the early village-sites marked on
Smith's map
can be ascer-
tained.
In gaining
their subsis-
tence upon
these exten-
sive lowlands
the ancient
Indians are
credited,
through tra-
dition, with
having effec-
ted some phys-
ical changes in
the country
which are not
a little inter-
esting since no
other record of
such achievements seems to have appeared in
print. These are the canals, or ''thoroughfares,"
as they are yet called, some still in existence
and pointed out as having been conceived and
dug by the aborigines. The value of one of
Fig. 50. — View in swamp along Pamunkey
river site near Uttamussak, at Romancoke
station.
POWHATAN TRIBES 335
these ditches cut across some marshy neck where
the river doubles on its course may well be
appreciated by any one journeying by water through
the country. For instance, at Cohoke 'Mow-
ground," just below the present reservation, there
is a short ditch cutting across a narrow strip of
marsh, believed to have been done by the Indians.
Fig. 51. — Scene in swamp hunting grounds on Chickahominy river.
This thoroughfare shortens the distance not less
than five miles in ascending or descending the
Pamunkey river. It remains in use today, without
modification or enlargement at the hands of the
whites, according to local statement. There is a
similar one at Hills marsh, lower down the river,
opposite the site of Old Uttamussak where Pow-
hatan had his sanctuary. This thoroughfare is
22
336 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
marked on Smith's map. It is now much obstructed,
though still open to canoes. In one of the accounts
of his exploration Smith referred to this short-cut
which he^thought to be of natural origin.
It would be interesting to investigate these arti-
ficial works, if all of them are such, to ascertain their
origin. Similar ditches and log bridges, evidently
the beginning of engineering enterprise among the
Indians of the region, occur at other points in the
Chesapeake area, and even on the Eastern Shore in
the Nanticoke country.
I have mentioned the Pamunkey necessity of
knowing how to manage themselves when obliged
to proceed over areas of mud. The Indian hunter of
the Chesapeake country operates in a region where,
without experience in judging the supporting quality
of mud and knowing how to wade or crawl in it, he
would be lost. When hunting, the Indians some-
times become stranded on a marshy island separated
from the shore by mud-bars; or, to secure game that
has been brought down, it may be necessary to wade
a hundred feet through mire of unknown depth. Or
still, in making their hunting excursions in marshes
or swamps at some distance from their boats, a
lagoon, or ''gut," showing only a surface of brown
slimy mud, may have to be traversed to reach one
of the deadfall sets. Even to render aid to some
less experienced sportsman, mired perhaps to the
armpits, the art of self-navigation in mud is essential.
The Indians recognize two kinds of mud — the
P.OWHATAN TRIBES 337
moderately firm and the ''floating" mud. The
former may be traversed by an experienced man if
care is taken not to allow the weight of the body to
remain more than an instant upon each leg, not to
put the foot straight downward in the mud, but to
proceed on flexed lower limbs, the weight carried on
the shins. Should the mud be softer, of the floating
variety, it may be necessary to advance prone on
the belly in ''turtle fashion." Movement must be
continuous lest the body settle too deep to be
worked loose. Children at an early age learn this
art. They help their parents retrieve ducks which
have been shot out on the mud-flats. In short,
the tidewater Indians throughout grow up with
such experience at their elbows.
Captain John Smith in his day observed the
expertness of the Indians in traversing the mire:^
The Indians seeing me pestred in the Ose, called to me:
six or seven of the Kings chiefe men threw off their skins,
and to the middle in Ose, came to bear me out on their
heads. Their importunacie caused me better to like the
Canow than their curtesie, excusing my deniall for feare
to fall into the Ose: desiring them to bring me some wood,
fire, and mats to cover me, and I would content them.
Each presently gave his helpe to satisfie my request, which
paines a horse would scarce have indured : yet a couple of
bells richly contented them.
The Emperor sent his Seaman Mantivas in the evening
with bread and victuall for me and my men: he no more
scrupulous then the rest seemed to take a pride in shewing
^ Tyler, Narratives of Early Virginia, op. cit., p. 58.
338 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
how litle he regarded that miserable cold and durty pas-
sage, though a dogge would scarce have endured it.
Besides stalking the deer to kill them, the \'irginia
Indians seem to have resorted extensively to the
drive. One of the earliest references to the customs
of these tribes is the description of a drive by the
Pamunkey in Chickahominy swamp, on which event-
ful occasion Captain Smith was surprised and taken
captive. Three hundred men were supposed by
him to form the company. We also hear of em-
ploying fire in conjunction with the deer drive,
a custom in itself suggestive of southern influence.
The deer drive as practised by the Indian remnants
in the state today, and their white neighbors as well,
is as follows:
The party of hunters is divided into two crews.
One is to occupy boats at stations in the river where
they are to wait for the deer to be driven out of the
swamp to be shot, the other is obliged to plunge
into the swamp with dogs and drive the game toward
the river where the animals will be intercepted in
their traverse. The method of selection, to be
impartial, is as follows: To assign the crews their
appointed tasks, the chief or captain holds in his
hand as many sticks as there are men on the drive.
Half of the sticks are shorter than the others. Each
man then draws a stick. Those drawing the
"shorts" may remain in the boats, while those
drawing the "longs" are to form the driving party.
POWHATAN TRIBES 339
It need hardly be added that the Pamunkey deer
hunt is an exciting and noisy event.
Deer are fairly abundant in the "low grounds"
up and down the middle course of Pamunkey river.
For instance, at one place just below the reservation,
known as Cohoke "low-ground," in the winter of
1922 when the river rose, more than thirty deer
were seen in one day to swim the river, making for
high land to escape the inundation of their haunts.
An event of importance is the annual deer drive
at Pamunkey when the hunters secure the venison
which they carry to the Governor's house in Rich-
mond in fulfillment of their treaty obligations to
furnish yearly tribute in the form of flesh, fur,
feather, and scale. The Pamunkey are justly proud
of the fact that they have performed this duty
without a break since the adoption of the treaty
between them and the General Assembly.
The episode of Captain Smith's capture and at
the same time his description of the deer drive of
that day are interesting enough to deserve repro-
duction.
At their huntings in the deserts they are commonly
2 or 300 together. Having found the Deare, they environ
them with many fires, and betwixt the fires they place
themselves. And some take their stands in the midst.
The Deare being thus feared by the fires and their voices,
they chace them so long within that circle, that many
times they kill 6, 8, 10, or 15 at a hunting. They use also
to drive them into some narrowe point of land, when they
find that advantage, and so force them into the river,
340 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
where with their boats they have Ambuscadoes to kill
them. . . .
In one of these huntings, they found Captaine Smith in
the discoverie of the head of the river of Chickahamania,
where they slew his men, and tooke him prisoner in a
Bogmire; where he saw those exercises, and these ob-
servations.^
Hunting the '*sora" rail {Porzana Carolina Linn.)
in the autumn has been an important occupation
among the river tribes of Virginia from time imme-
morial. In earlier days the birds appeared on the
Pamunkey marshes in swarming flocks. Even now
they are abundant enough to furnish a profitable
pursuit to the natives during the periodic flights.
The sora at these times cling to the brackish marshes.
The old Pamunkey had, accordingly, a most inter-
esting legendary belief, namely, that the sora arose
from the marshes as metamorphosed frogs. And
they know that the frogs develop from tadpoles.
One of the reasons given for thinking the sora evolve
from frogs is that the birds have partly webbed feet
like the frogs. We may imagine, I suppose, that the
nocturnal migrations of the bird have been respon-
sible for ignorance of the actual conditions. A
poetical fancy has associated the disappearance of
the myriad croaking frogs from the marshes in the
fall with the appearance of the myriads of birds
during the season just following and filling the same
places with their cries. They come about September
20th. As to the method of killing sora the old
1 Tyler, Narratives of Early Virginia, op. cit., p. 104.
POWHATAN TRIBES 341
native practice has with little modification survived
until today. The birds roosting at night in their
marshy domain are invaded by the hunters in canoes,
poled with the long paddle. The boats carry a
beacon light at the bow to ''light up the marsh"
and blind the birds so that they can be struck down
Fig. 52. — Chickahominy boy with "sora horses" of iron, used as
beacons in the bows of canoes when killing sora, or rail-birds.
into the water from their perches on the stalks of
the rushes or hit with the paddles as they fly in
commotion toward the beacon. They are then
gathered and piled into the boat. The beacon itself
is an interesting object. Tradition says that the
ancient sora beacon, which is called a ''sora horse,"
was an openwork clay basket. One of these, made
about 1893, is figured by Holmes in his ceramic
342 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
study. ^ In latter days the ''sora horse" or fire-
basket has been constructed of iron strips (fig. 52).
The specimens shown are from the Chickahominy.
Pollard ^ says something about the custom of sora
killing at Pamunkey in his day.
In the autumn sora are found in the marshes in great
numbers, and the Indian method of capturing them is
most interesting: They have what they strangely call a
"sora horse," strongly resembling a peach basket in size
and shape, and made of strips of iron, though they were
formerly molded out of clay. The ''horse" is mounted on
a pole which is stuck in the marsh or placed upright in a
foot-boat. A fire is then kindled in the ''horse." The
light attracts the sora and they fly around it in great
numbers, while the Indians knock them down with long
paddles. This method is, of course, used only at night.
The present Indians refer to sora hunting as
''sorassin." This term is most interesting because
it may be a corrupt derivation from the native
Indian term. The final element {-assin) occurs in
Massachusetts Algonkian wikwassin which denotes
fishing by torchlight. The very name sora itself is
a puzzle. Undoubtedly its origin too is Indian,
though whether it comes from the tidewater Algon-
kian term or from some other southern language it
would be difficult to say merely through an attempt
to etymologize the word.
^ Holmes in Twentieth Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol.y
pi. cxxxvi.
2 Pollard, op. cit., p. 15.
POWHATAN TRIBES
343
The Pamunkey, Mattaponi, and Chickahomlny
hunt in the swamps along the rivers by stalking
raccoon, opossum, and muskrat for their meat and
fur, mink and otter for fur alone. Rabbits, wild
turkeys, doves, quail, meadow-larks, robins, flickers,
cedar-birds, snow-birds, and even the '* bull-bat" or
night hawk are hunted and eaten.
The business of trapping is, however, most inter-
esting to us because the old-fashioned Indian deadfall
is yet almost exclusively operated. The reason for
its survival in competition with steel spring-traps
is that the hunters have been convinced of the
Fig. 53.— Pamunkey trap. Length, 33 in. (14/9062)
superiority of the old-style fall which does not rust,
which costs nothing, and which kills and holds the
animal without tearing its hide or allowing it a
chance to gnaw off its foot and escape. Raccoons,
opossums, and muskrats are regularly taken in the
stationary deadfalls, which are permanently built
344 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
at places where the animals come to the water to
wash their food or to forage. Some of the deadfalls
pointed out today are known to have been con-
structed not long after the Civil War. Their *' pens "
are still intact. Again, many of the deadfall sites
are known to have been occupied continuously since
those days. Caked with mud at low tide, it seems
that the timbers
are almost inde-
structible. Figs.
47 and 48 show the
situation of several
of these along
Great creek on
hunting ground
number 3 at Pa-
munkey (see page
315). Figs. 53 and
54 show the plan of
construction of the
Pamunkey deadfall. It corresponds precisely with
what is employed among all the river tribes of the
tidewater country.
Several outdoor practices surviving from the
serious days of hunting and fishing portray the
customs of old Pamunkey life. For instance, when
overtaken abroad by night through any of the mis-
chances which are apt to impede them while traveling
on the river, they have resorted to the stems of wild
honeysuckle for fire-kindling material. No matter
Fig. 54. — Detail of trigger of Pamunkey
trap (a, inside; b, outside).
POWHATAN TRIBES
345
how wet the weather, and it is nearly always wet or
humid in the Virginia low country, a blaze may be
started with these stems. Their use corresponds
to the highly inflammable birch-bark used by the
northern Algonkians at all times in the camps.
Some folklore clusters about fire-making. They
have taught them-
selves not to burn
sassafras or grape-
vine either indoors or
out, the reason being
that they fear some-
thing will happen to
their livestock, al-
though what the con-
nection is we are un-
able even to imagine.
The hearth must not
be cleaned after dark.
The fire-logs may be
pushed together, but
not turned, to make
them flame. A crack-
ling fire in winter
denotes snow for the ensuing day. When soot,
accumulating on the chimney-back, sparkles and
glows, making what the white settlers called
"chimney lice," the Powhatan say, "Fresh meat
will be had tomorrow." This sign is believed in by
all the Virginia bands.
Fig. 55. — Dried fungus growth
kept in the cabin by a Mattaponi
as a charm. Width, 2h in.
(9/7743)
346 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
03 <1
3 2? c3
TO ■*->
^^ a;
Tl cd n r^
3 ^ S Cd
03
3
vO ^'^
^5 S'^
-(-> -!-> ex)
POWHATAN TRIBES
347
The Pamunkey know well the old
custom, so widespread among the Al-
gonkians, of sharing the first game
killed by a little boy among the father's
friends. The boy moreover was not
supposed to partake of the meat of his
first game. The tusk of a boar is con-
sidered worth preserving as a fetish
to produce strength. The penis-bones
of the raccoon and mink are also kept
to insure luck to hunters, and the
metacarpal bone of the deer serves a
similar function as it does among the
more northerly Algonkian hunters.
The bows used by the Virginia tribes
of early times are described as made
of witch-hazel. At present this is not
known to the descendants, though
bows of hickory and oak, from three
and a half to five feet long, are not
uncommon. Information shows that
the ''sap-wood," not the heart, of the
white cedar was also used. Bows are
sometimes square in cross-section,
sometimes convex on the inside and
flat on the outside, with pointed ends.
Frequently the middle third of the
bow staff is thicker than the outer
Fig. 57.
-Pamunkev bow and stone-pointed arrow. Length of
bow, 59 in.; of arrow, 31 in. (10/6562, 6563)
348 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
I
O
o
M
C
3
POWHATAN TRIBES
349
thirds, which form is called ''buzzard wing,"
suggested by fancied resemblance to a buzzard
in flight. Arrowshafts of ''arrow-wood" cut
from natural twigs, as of old, are still known.
as well as others
smoothed from
eral specimens of
feathering, two tur-
used. Occasionally
stone arrowheads
upon such shafts,
cord or a mulberry-
way which cannot
method of several
mens of these
figs. 57, 58. The
from the right
spread Algonkian
Passing reference
Fig. 59.—
Mattaponi
cross-bow.
the cross-bow in ^^^^^^ 2!,^^^"^^
32 in. (9/7749)
water area where
split down and
heart of oak. Sev-
arrows show modern
key-feathers being
the Pamunkey mount
found in their fields
fixing them with a
bark wrapping in a
much differ from the
centuries ago. Speci-
weapons are shown in
arrow is turned loose
hand by the wide-
_ primary release,
should be made to
the Virginia tide-
its introduction by
Europeans among the Indians of colonial times par-
allels what happened northward as far as the Mon-
tagnais-Nascapi. The Virginia Indian type of this
curious toy is shown in fig. 59. It is reported among
the mixed Indian groups as far south as the
Carolinas.
350 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
A tradition is
related by the
Mattaponi con-
cerning the poi-
soning o f ar-
row h e a d s by
their ancestors.
It is said by
Powhatan Ma-
jor there that
the stone ar-
rowheads with
a flat side, and
especially those
with corrugated
edges, were in-
tended to carry
a poison made
from rattle-
snake venom-
glands mixed
into a paste.
The corrugated
arrowheads o f
white quartz
answering t o
this require-
ment are rela-
FiG. 60. — Pamunkey
warclub of the "ball-
head " type (broken).
Length, 23 in. (10/5684)
Fig. 61. — j\fattaponi
hafted stone tomahawk.
Length, 20^ in. (9/7769)
POWHATAN TRIBES 351
tively abundant in the tidewater region. While
traditions of former economic properties should not
be totally ignored, one feels nevertheless highly
skeptical about their sources.
A Pamunkey Turkey-hunt
By way of diversion from the unenlivened proc-
esses of pure ethnological description, a scene from
the work of a day of one of the hunters (Paul Miles)
will convey a picture of life at Pamunkey and help
to give a background for an understanding of living
conditions.
A chilly northwest wind is blowing down the
Pamunkey late in the afternoon when we leave the
village facing the rays of the setting sun, and embark
in Paul's canoe, paddling toward the mouth of a
sinuous lagoon called Great creek. This flows out of
the big swamp at the western end of the territory
which the Pam^unkey still call their own. Its fast-
nesses of swamp-gum, magnolia, and swamp-oak at
high tide are flooded with the coffee-colored waters
of the river. At low tide, which here drops between
two and three feet, the turbid waters leave a tangle of
roots and hummocks of indescribable muddy conge-
lation in tussocks some eight or ten feet across, from
the top of which rise clusters of gums, oaks, and other
trees. Some of their trunks tower fifty to sixty
feet above the muddy floor of the swamp, while a
thicker but lower growth shuts off the swamper's
view beyond a distance of twenty feet. In this
23
352 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
memorable and gloomy vaulted fastness of malaria,
tenanted only by the creatures of solitude, the
Pamunkey hunters have pursued the chase for many
centuries. Wild turkeys, the noblest of game
birds, ducks, the bald- eagle, geese, deer, raccoons,
opossums, otter, mink, muskrat have survived
generations of keen trappers. Their ranks have
ever been recruited from the flocks of birds and
mammals which still make their periodic visits, one
might almost say migrations, through the tidewater
region. The great blue heron, the white young of
the more southerly herons, and most numerous and
omnipresent of all, the great barred owl are the
permanent denizens of these dank recesses. When
we leave the open river with its cheerful ripples
lapping the sides of our canoe, and the gray clouds
banked in the sky now to the east over the Chesa-
peake, the ''great salt water" of the Indians, we
convert our paddles into poles and poke our way
over mud bars into Great creek, at each prod loos-
ening a swirl of reddish mud which rises ever thicker
through the opaque current and now and then send-
ing ahead in muddy ripples some fish that is startled
by our advance into his roily domain. A smell of
saturated mud, drenched dead wood and moldy
leaves comes to us as the gas bubbles rise to the sur-
face when released by our shoving-paddles.
As the tide is low, the whole floor of the swamp is
carpeted in places with sodden sedge grass, while
everywhere lie matted leaves coated with dried
POWHATAN TRIBES 353
brown mud. Brown is the dominant color: brown
are the tree trunks, marked distinctly to the high-
tide level; brown is the glazed mud and ooze, and
glassy water in here where no wind strikes it.
Two or three bends of the lagoon carry us out of
view of the river and the edge of the swamp. On all
sides the drainways of the interior have cut through
the floor, leading in slimy slopes to the edge of the
water. Innumerable tracks of small animals are to
be seen at each sluice — muskrat, mink, otter, with
here and there one which the Pamunkey remarks in
a whisper to be raccoon, and finally, farther in, those
of turkey. The gun w^hich has rested in the bow
is now loaded and taken in hand ready for work as
the guide, now aroused to the importance of his
task, plies his long oak paddle from the stern and
forces the canoe over or around the mud-bars and
ooze-shoals which are left nude and brow^n for three
hours more before these inland tides will again cover
them. ''Now if you see anything jum.p up, I want
you to cut him down." '' I will," I whisper in reply.
Only the drip of a dozen drops from the evenly sway-
ing pole-paddle announces our entrance into the
solitude. How busy the Pamunkey huntsmen are in
their swampy domain, when at every bend we see one
of their deadfalls for mink, coon, and otter, now
soaked, mud-coated, and weed-clogged as they are
exposed by the ebb tide. ''All right," I w^hisper
again as the steersman gives a "shiver" from his seat
in the stern, the Pamunkey way of saying without
354 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
words, ''Watch closely, something moving!" A
distant rustle of twigs on the right in a gum cluster is
the first cause of alarm. I ''shiver" once in my seat
in response and he turns the canoe with a silent shove
to the right so as to throw me about facing the noise,
lest in giving a sudden shot I upset the canoe. What
will it prove to be, a deer aroused, or will a turkey
burst away? A furtive rustle, a noisy flutter, and
a white-throated sparrow pops into view with a
piquant air; flutters loudly enough, it seems, to
disturb the silence of the swamp, and we resume our
stealthy passage into another arm whose slimy
banks rise several feet on both sides. Here the
creek is hardly more than fifteen feet wide. On
both sides are the ski-'t^n^s, the "red berries" in
the Pamunkey dialect, upon which the turkeys feed.
On all the water-gums are showing small isolated
berries. These likewise furnish food for the turkeys.
While the Pamunkey have completely forgotten their
native tongue, it is not surprising to find that in
their natural-history and hunting vocabulary some
last Indian words survive.
Another "shiver" from the steersman warns me
again of game detected. At the same instant a form
moves on the horizontal branch of a monster gum-
tree whose roots form a vault of mud-coated columns
leading to its massive buttress. "Let him have it!"
No, it is only the spirit of the swamp, the barred-
owl, which now turns his ogreish head about and
drops off to another rampike in noiseless flight.
POWHATAN TRIBES 355
Five minutes later we hear his vacant whoo-oo
farther off, and an answer from his mate, still more
filmy and remote, filling the mind with the sense of
hush and distance. The sound is indeed fitting to
the exotic atmosphere of the swamp. Now, as it is
nearing sundown, we look for a motionless pool to
stop in and listen from, to harken for the roosting
calls of the hens or possibly to hear the rush of wings
as the great birds fly to roost on some limb fifty
feet above, where they will crane their necks in all
directions for about twenty minutes before contract-
ing their great bodies to the smallest compass, to
simulate the knots on the gums, and tuck their heads
under wings to sleep like any secure barnyard fowl.
This is the critical time. Every sharpened sense of
both hunters and turkeys is keyed to action. ''There
goes one!" A whisper and powerful ''shiver"
convey the observation. Too far away; he has
bolted for some inaccessible thicket and we see no
more of him.
Now it is to wait twenty minutes in our position
while the Indian holds the canoe still by poking his
pole-paddle into several feet of submarine mud.
There is not a sound. Three or four birds fly high,
probably woodpeckers; a distant hound's yelping
proclaims another Indian somewhere on the move.
It is now time to turn back, as darkness sets
in heavily with a penetrating damp that will
even defy the strenuous paddling necessary when
we emerge again upon the open river. The canoe
356 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
is swung around and the Indian poles her swiftly
but silently along until the evening gleam on the
horizon shows that we are nearing the edge of the
swamp. We tarry and enter yet another draw to
examine the high tree-tops for birds that may be
roosted there, for at this darkening half-hour the
birds are all off the ground. Several suspicious
clumps turn out to be only knots, or gnarled light-
ning-blasted branches, or clusters of dense mistletoe.
Back to the river again, as the game is over for
tonight. A crescent moon above the evening star
is framed by bulky cloud masses. The wind has
''lulled" and we make for the landing beach on the
reservation shore where for generations Pamunkey
hunters have likewise drawn up their canoes after
having engaged in the same performance as that
which we have just been through.
Turkey-calling
In another method of turkey-hunting the Pamun-
key resemble the eastern Algonkians in general;
they call the game to them by imitating their cries.
Although the deer are not known to be so dealt
with, since they are attacked by the drive, the wild
turkey being susceptible of imitation is successfully
lured within range of the weapons of the concealed
huntsmen. The turkey being possessed of gre-
garious inclinations is skilfully lured by an instru-
ment, called a turkey ''call" or "yelp," manipulated
POWHATAN TRIBES
357
ii
with the lips and hands. The article so employed
is a section of the secondary wing-bone of the bird
itself. Sections of bone about five inches long are
kept for this service (figs. 62, 63), though not infre-
quently a similar length of cane
(Arundinaria) is substituted, and
I have collected a specimen of the
same consisting of a four-inch sec-
tion of hollow ash twig — in fact
a pipe-stem.
Let us observe
the procedure
with John Den-
is, a Pamunkey
hunter and
guide of long
experience.
Toward eve-
ning, going out
into the oak and
gum swamp
where turkeys
are known to
be, a flock is
finally flushed
by the noise
of advance. The hunter remains quiet, it may be
for half an hour. Soon a call, or ''yelp," is heard
from one of the birds of the dispersed flock calling
the others together, and some of them answer.
Fig. 62. — Pamun-
key bone turkey calls.
Length of longest, 5.4
in. (10/5700, 5701)
Fig. 63. — Mattaponi
bone turkey calls.
Length of the longest,
3.7 in. (9/7746)
358 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
The hunter then works noiselessly a few feet toward
them, if possible. He crouches low behind the
buttress of one of the big gum trees and tries a
*'yelp" with his wing-bone tube, his weapon close at
hand. If he
gets an answer
he tries again
in a minute,
tuning his
''yelp" to
serve as a
means of
drawing the
bird to him,
by the seduc-
tive chirp re-
peated three
times to the
scattered
birds, which
means, ''Here
I am; w^here
are you? " Should he make the slightest break or mis-
take in his tone, the whole flock would be alarmed
and tumultuously fly off. The enticed bird, however,
is completely deceived and steps forward, cranes its
neck to one side, then the other, clucks, and peeks
cautiously for a suspicious movement in the direction
of the call. Now is the critical moment to render
Fig. 64. — Pamunkey hunter demonstrat-
ing method of calling wild turkey with a
wing-bone call.
POWHATAN TRIBES 359
the call-tone in dulcet pathos. Bang! Off goes the
flock into the heart of the swamp again.
FISHING CUSTOMS
The Powhatan tribes still adhere to some fishing
practices worth mentioning. Until not long ago
fish fences were employed. These were chiefly for
sturgeon, but now this splendid fish is so scarce that
whereas thirty years ago from three to six a day
during July and August would be taken, now the
record is three a season by six boats fishing the same
period. Captain John Smith mentions 52 and 68
being taken ''at a draught." ^
The Virginia explorers noted the great abundance
of sturgeon, and we may imagine that the fish con-
tributed largely to the abundance of food of the
early Indians. The method employed in the con-
struction of the fish-pond or "bush-net" is described
by several of the men at Pamunkey and Mattaponi.
At the entrance of the smaller creeks, or guts, branch-
ing off from the main streams there was built a
barrier of poles several feet apart driven upright into
the ever-present mud at low tide when the water is
out of the place.
The "bush-nets" or "hedges" are well remem-
bered by John Langston as having been worked by
his father some seventy-five years ago. They were
know^n and described among the neighboring Dela-
wares and Nanticoke in early colonial times.
^ Tyler, Narratives of Early Virginia, op. cit., p. 85.
360 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
The ^'hedges" were made low enough in some
instances so that the fish could pass over their tops
at high tide. Then, as the water went out on the
ebb, they would be barred from returning to the
river (fig. 65). In the enclosures where the water
might be from six to eight feet deep the hunters could
shoot the impounded fish with arrows or spear them
with iron-pointed prongs. In the deep holes the
sturgeon caught by the "hedges" were hooked with
a jig- hook. They would sometimes jump the
barrier. ''Hedging" was more practicable near the
headwaters of the rivers, frequently above tidewater.
Each man had his own enclosure. They were
generally about a mile apart. Two or three men
would combine and work together as partners in the
enclosures. The crews respected each other's rights
of ownership. Then sometimes they would move
their ''hedges" a mile or so up or down stream, all
the crews shifting at the same time. The reason
for this change is given as growing out of an idea
that they could do better by it. A final word of
description adds the information that the lattice-
work of the "hedges" was so constructed as to slope
upstream. I might add that similar weirs may be
seen in the streams of the Cherokee country. In
that region stones are available for construction and
are used in the wings of the dam, the trap of slats
being set at an opening where the fish are obliged to
pass. In the Powhatan area, however, no stones
suitable for such a purpose exist.
POWHATAN TRIBES 361
" J HEDGE
creek
t-JP^
FYKE
-"^""^s^ ^r~^r^'
Fig. 65. — Outline of plan of Pamunkey bush-fences on creek and lagoon
to entrap fish.
For several generations shad fishing has been an
important industry among the tidewater Indians.
It is, indeed, one of their principal harvests. Easter
time is the height of the shad season with them. At
362 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Fig. 66. — Pamunkey fishermen returning from their nets.
Pamunkey they have a belief that the shad arrive in
the river at the time when the white violet blooms;
hence they have the name ''shad-flower" for it.
Drift seines are employed in the same way as among
the white people. Day and night the seines are
tended by the men who bivouac in camp huts of
boards along the shore. For several weeks many of
them are not home for a night's sleep.
The seines at night are provided with board
floats at each end carrying a lighted lantern. By
this their position is known when it is thought time
to haul them. Six or seven seines with their lights
riding on the river, the seiners' campfire on the shore,
and the somber wooded swamps on both sides make
an impressive picture on an April night. The great
barred owls call forth the quarter, half, and full
tides, so the Indians of all the Virginia tribes say and
POWHATAN TRIBES 363
believe. This saying can well be accredited with a
basis of truth, for it is a rare hour when one or more
of the resounding human-like series of whoops does
not echo from the swamp, so loud that it rises above
all other sounds of the night.
Herring also form a spring catch of importance.
These fish are looked for when the locust and the
dogwood commence to bloom. Among not only
the Pamunkey, but among the other river tribes, the
Mattaponi and Chickahominy, the same natural
signs are consulted for the timing of industry. For
instance, they believe that eels may be more profit-
ably caught in the full of the moon. Among the
Pamunkey a fondness for catfish in the form of stew
Fig. 67. — Mattaponi shad fishermen landing on the shore below the
village.
364 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Fig. 68. — Pamunkey fisherman poling a boat to visit set-lines. Swamp
hunting grounds in the distance.
is increased by a belief that it stimulates sexual
desires. Nothing could exceed their relish for it.
The same belief is current among the oth r tribes, as
well as the negroes, of the region.
Although I have fished all the different methods
with the three river tribes just mentioned and have
persistently inquired among the older people, nothing
more than the tradition of catching fish by poison
has been encountered. The poisoning method so
well known and widely distributed among the
southeastern tribes, especially the Muskogi, may
have been employed in Virginia too, but there is no
definite allusion to it in the records. The reason for
POWHATAN TRIBES
365
this may be found to have a basis in the physiography
of the country. Being subject to a two- or three-
foot tidal inundation, the rivers of the Virginia
coastal plain do not furnish suitable permanent
pools in which the fish poison may be distributed.
Moreover, the fish supply is so abundant and varied
that other methods are more expeditious and pro-
ductive. A review of the poisoning practice, I
believe, will show that its distribution in the south-
east is limited to freshwater river regions. This
topic is, at any rate, about ripe for investigation.
Fish shooting with the bow and arrow is well
remembered among the older Pamunkey and
Mattaponi. The bow is the usual article; the arrow,
the '* arrow-wood" shaft tipped with a ferrule point.
Fig. 69. — Chickahominy fishermen hauling a shad seine.
366 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Fig. 70. — Pamunkey netting needles and net gauge. Length of /,
12iin. (10/5686)
POWHATAN TRIBES 367
No string, however, was in recent times attached to
the arrow, as was the case among some of the more
southerly people who relied upon the string to pull
out the fish when struck. Captain Smith in 1612
mentioned the natives shooting fish with arrows
tied by a line.^
At Pamunkey the fish-hunter goes down to one of
the ponds or tidal pools toward evening where he
finds the ''cow fish" or ''stiff- backed perch" guard-
ing their young so the other fish will not eat them,
and shoots them from the bank. Fish-shooting is
a typical southern practice and may be regarded as
one of the southeastern acculturations of the Virginia
Algonkians.
While hand-made nets have been completely
superseded by the nets of commerce, there is still
abundant reason for the preservation of the netting
technique in this region. Repairing or "hanging"
is constantly required, and then there are some of
the poorer fishermen who are occasionally obliged
to make their own nets. From a number of the
eastern tribal remnants the usual tongued netting-
needle of the European pattern has been collected and
studied by Hallowell. The netting implements at
Pamunkey and Mattaponi (figs. 70, 71) are prac-
tically identical with those of the eastern Algonkians
now from North Carolina to Labrador. Those illus-
trated here show the different-sized needles employed
in making nets for use with varying kinds of fish, the
^ Tyler, Narratives of Early Virginia, op. cit., p. 102.
24
368 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Fig. 71. — Mattaponi netting needles and net gauge. Length of a and
e, 12 in. (9/7760, 7761)
P O W HATAN TRIBES
369
largest one for sturgeon nets, the others for shad and
herring seines. The measuring blocks, too (figs. 70,
e; 71, c, d), are in correspondence with those of the
general area. I need only add the expected state-
ment that the universal ''becket knot" is employed.
While the use of seines has been the principal method
in recent years, the Indians seem to think that it was
introduced by the English.^ The so-called net-
FiG. 72. — Pamunkey "set-line" for catfish.
sinkers are not found on these rivers at all. This is
significant. The Powhatan undoubtedly could and
did make small nets for use in the hand or with pole
handles. The net topic among the eastern Algon-
kians is, however, under treatment at the hands of
Hallowell.2
^ Nets for fishing made of native vegetal twine were
referred to by the early explorers. See Tyler, Narratives
of Early Virginia, op. cit., p. 103.
2 Dr. Hallowell's memoir, The Problem of Fish-nets in
North America, will appear in this series in the near future.
370 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
A general practice of using set-lines (fig. 72) for
catfish is followed by practically all the men on the
reservations at Pamunkey and Mattaponi. The
lines are of heavy cord, 250 to 300 feet long. At
distances of 18 inches apart are tied the hooks on
string leaders 12 inches in length. At intervals
along the set-
line stone sink-
ers are tied.
In this case
just natural,
rough, square-
edged stones
from the shore
aretaken. One
end of the set-
line is attach-
ed to a stout
pole stuck into
the mud bot-
tom, and the
other rides the
surface tied to
a bottle. By
this means the set-line is kept in one place where
the catfish are obliged to pass following the channel.
The stone sinkers keep the line on the bottom where
the catfish feed, and the floating end of the line allows
ample play for the tides. The hooks are baited with
cut-up minnows. Generally the bait is renewed
Fig. 73. — Mattaponi net float of pine-bark.
Extreme diameter, 6| in. (10/5739)
POWHATAN TRIBES
371
every other day. At each average haul of such a
line 60 to 100 catfish are taken. Oftentimes mussels
attach themselves to the bait and are brought up.
Then the fisherman takes them home to be made into
stew. The fisherman's task is vigorous and varied.
About every other evening he is obliged to haul a
small minnow seine to re-
plenish the bait. He takes
up his set-line early in the
morning, removing the cap-
tured fish and rebaiting at
the same time.
It takes about two hours
to ''haul and bait" the two
set-lines that each fisherman
operates. While the canoe
tosses and lurches, when the
wind is high and the waves
are raised by wind against
tide, it is difficult to hold
it to the line with the hands
employed on the hooks. So
a nail is driven into the
gunwale and the set-line run over it as it is passed
along, keeping the canoe and line together while
the hauling and baiting are accomplished. Like
the Algonkians in general, the Pamunkey is essen-
tially a river-man.
The fishing customs of the Pamunkey should not
be passed over without reference to an interesting
Fig. 74. — Pamunkey
fishline float. Length, 2.4
in. (11/385)
372 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
habit of some of the women in preferring to scale
their shad with a stone scraper instead of a metal
knife — a custom of survival from their stone age.
Specimens obtained from old fish-houses and one
still in use by the wife of Chief Cook are shown in
fig. 76. Mrs. Cook had found hers at an old house-
site. The claim is
made that these im-
plements remove
scales without cut-
ting flesh or fingers.
During practically
the whole year the
tidewater tribes draw
upon the river for
their food supply.
Shad, drum, roach,
perch, gar, catfish,
eels, formerly stur-
geon, oysters, and of
recent years carp and
yellow catfish, a-
bound in Pamunkey
and Mattaponi rivers. In both bands there are
sayings in reference to the river as a food
supply. At Mattaponi it is said, ''The river is
the Indian's smoke-house; it is open all the time
except for a short period in winter," meaning
when it is frozen. From Pamunkey comes also,
''If the smoke-house doors get shut, I'll go away
Fig. 75. — Fossil vertebra used by
Mattaponi fishermen as a charm.
Height, 4 in. (9/7742)
PO\A^HATAN TRIBES
373
for a few days," meaning, ''If the river freezes over
with ice, I can't fish, so I'll go away for a trip."
These are muddy rivers, while the Chickahominy is
a clear-water stream, and so lacks catfish noticeably
but contains black bass, which attract many sports-
men. The men of all the tribes of the group, in
fact, are constantly employed as fishing and hunting
guides.
.^m^-
Fig. 76. — Stone blades used by Pamunkey for scraping scales from
fish. The largest are 5i in. long. (10/5716, 5727)
We hear through local tradition of occasional
porpoises seen in the Mattaponi river, but no account
is forthcoming of their pursuit. And it is also worth
mentioning, perhaps, that the Indians here say that
a whale actually entered York river and was seen
off Yorktown. We may accordingly imagine that
in the past the natives occasionally indulged in a
374 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
whale feast upon some stranded monster, as do so
many of the maritime Algonkians.
CANOES
The means provided by the Powhatan tribes for
transporting themselves about in these marshy
wastes was the dugout canoe. No other type of
canoe can be ascribed to the southern Virginia
culture area, even though Beverley in 1722 figured
one of bark as though it were a product of the
country. The only explanation of this error is that
he credited the Virginia tribes with having what
other tribes had, or that a bark canoe had strayed
by trade into the tidewater area. The canoe in
his sketch is labeled ''birch bark canoe." This
would have been an impossibility for the Virginia
tribes, since the canoe-birch does not range on the
coast as a native tree much below New England.
It was not unusual for early writers to describe
Indian life in general terms and to apply the descrip-
tion to special areas. Even the Jesuits occasionally
did it.
Turning now to the dugout canoe, we encounter
an interesting field. Their manufacture and use
have ended only with the last generation; so we have
first-hand knowledge of details of make and use.
Several hulks of abandoned and rotting dugouts are
still known lying in the preserving mud in the spots
where they foundered. Within recent years Terrill
Bradby has made one, and within the last few
POWHATAN TRIBES
375
years Paul Miles has hewn out the large one illus-
trated in fig. 77. As many as six or seven dugouts
belonging to fishermen, drawn up on the shore at
the river-landing, are remembered by elderly men.
The Pamunkey and Mattaponi dugouts were gener-
^^**%^
Fig. 77. — Dugout canoe of the Pamunkey in course of construction.
ally made of yellow^ pine {Pinus taeda), while at
Chickahominy, where cypress abounds, they were
made of that tree.
Captain John Smith gives an account of canoe-
making:
Their fishing is much in Boats. These they make of
one tree by bowing [burning] and scratching away the
376 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
coles with stone and shels till they have made it in forme
of a Trough. Some of them are an elne deepe, and 40 or
50 foot in length, and some will beare 40 men, but the most
ordinary are smaller, and will beare 10, 20, or 30 according
to their bignes. Instead of oares, they use paddles and
sticks, with which they will row faster then our Barges.^
At one time Powhatan exhibited to Captain Smith
his great canoes capable of carrying forty men, in
Fig. 78. — Dugout canoes in the Dismal swamp, Virginia.
which they traversed Chesapeake bay to reach the
territories of the Accomac on the Eastern Shore.
Some native-made dugouts are still operated by
travelers in the ditches of the Dismal swamp, in
the old territory of the Nansamond. The form and
cut of these boats are identical with those of the
Tyler, Narratives of Early Virginia, op. cit., p. 103.
POWHATAN TRIBES
377
Chickahominy craft and with the later types at
Pamunkey and Mattaponi, having the pointed ends
(fig. 78) . They are undoubtedly of aboriginal model.
On these various specimens in eastern Virginia we
base our information.
As in other portions of the log-canoe area the
Virginia Algonkians burned out the interior of a
trunk of a tree and tested the
thickness of the walls, as the
charring and adzing progressed,
by boring holes from the outside
in to the depth of thickness de-
sired. Then when the interior
was hewn dowm until the holes
were reached, it was known to be
far enough. The holes were later
plugged up to be water-tight.
After the coming of Europeans
the Pamunkey acquired iron adzes
for hewing. One of these, found
broken in the ground near an old
house site on the reservation, is
shown in fig. 79.
The bottom of the dugout is
nearly fiat; the interior has a
flat bottom and vertical sides,
project a little over the water-line. An interest-
ing natural angle-measure was employed to fur-
nish a pattern for the ends. This was a forked
branch, having the right curve and flare (fig. 80).
Fig. 79. — Old iron
adz found on the Pa-
munkey reservation.
Length, 4 in. (11/
8183)
and the ends
378 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Laid on the ends of the unfinished dugout the
pointing of the bow and stern was marked off from
this pattern. The canoes of the older type are
remembered as ''tray-heads," named, it is said, from
their resem-
blance to the
native bread-
tray or bowl
(fig. 92). They
correspond to
the outline o'
the dugout fig-
ured so long
ago by Hariot
intheHatteras
region. In la-
ter times the
bow was made
sharper, more cut-under and scooped. We have a
specimen of the old type of canoe made in recent times
by Paul Miles, one of the hunters. Its dimensions are :
Length, 18 ft.; width at waist, 28 in.; thickness at
bottom, 23^2 in.; sides above water-line, 13 in.;
capacity, five persons; weight about 460 lbs.; "tray-
head" bow and short-cut stern. Compared with
this specimen several of the cypress dugouts (fig. 78)
from the Dismal swamp give the following figures:
1. Length, 17^ ft.; width, 2 ft. 8 in.; width of flattened
bottom, 18 in.
2. Length, 17 ft.; width, 2 ft. 8 in.; width of flattened
bottom, 18 in.
3. Length, 15^ ft.; width, 2 ft. 2 in.; width of flattened
bottom, 13 J^ in.
Fig. 80. — Forked-branch pattern for
making canoe bows.
POWHATAN TRIBES
379
Fi G. 8 1.—
Pamunkey
canoe paddles.
Sizes, 6 ft. 7 in.
and 5 ft. 4 in.
(9/7767, 7768;
The Pamunkey pad-
dled their canoes sitting
on boards merely laid
across the gunwales.
The seats were necessar-
ily movable, it is said,
in order to allow the
fisherman to move easily
about and to shift his
position without delay.
The Pamunkey, w h o
now make and use only
the plank canoe, still
use the movable seat and
continue, as we shall
now see, to work with
the same type of paddle
as that which was form-
erly used w4th the dug-
out. The paddle is a
matter of interest and
importance to the In-
dian, for upon it de-
pends his success and
even his life, in the
severe w4nds and rough
waters of the fishing
season. The paddles are
long, from five to seven
feet. They are gener-
ally of red oak, ash.
Fig. 82.—
Chickahominy
canoe paddles.
Length, 7 ft. 3
in. and 5 ft. 1 in.
(10/5743, 5744)
380 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
chestnut, or white oak, at Pamunkey and Mattaponi,
of white oak, ash, or cypress at Chickahominy.
The steering paddle is generally of the same length
as the bow paddle, though some fishermen carry
five-foot paddles in their canoes, with which the
boys paddle when they accompany them.
By the ''shouldered" paddle I refer to the type
illustrated in fig. 82, in which the blade widens into
shoulders. The grip is always plain. The Pa-
munkey paddle generally has a stouter staff than
the kind used at Chickahominy. The reason for
this, given by the Pamunkey, is that their river is
rougher and windier than the Chickahominy river,
requiring a stouter paddle; by the Chickahominy
the reason is given that the latter work more deliber-
ately and quietly in stalking game. They say that
the ''shouldered" paddle is noisier than the tapering
form while it is in the water. When approaching
or stalking game, the paddle is not lifted from the
water, but the blade is noiselessly turned sideways
at each stroke. The paddles are all very strong and
pliable, admirably suited both for poling and for
shoving in water or in ooze. They are, however,
seemingly heavy, at least to hands accustomed to
the light maple paddles of the northern Indians.
We must nevertheless admit their superiority under
the conditions involved. The Virginia canoemen
take a long deep stroke, reaching quite far forward
to "dig in and grip" the water. The lower hand
rests on the leg to give more leverage power. It
POWHATAN TRIBES 381
requires great strength to move and steer the heavy
water-logged dugouts and plank boats now used.
The canoeman never kneels, but sits on the loose
board seat, with knees bent, or with one leg extended
straight out.
The bailer is a scoop made of one piece of wood
with a projection forming the handle.
Some rather interesting folklore is associated with
the dugout. The slime which coats the pebble or
mud beaches of the tidewater rivers permits the
canoe, no matter how heavy, to be slid to the water's
edge and launched again by two men when needed
at low tide. According to tradition at Pamunkey,
it is believed that in shoving out from the shore the
canoe should be first turned ''sun-wise," or with the
sun, that is, from east to west. After this formal
direction in leaving the shore has been taken, the
canoe may be turned in the direction desired.
Like the northern Algonkians, the Pamunkey
canoemen apprise one another of game observed by
a sudden jerk of the body, which, communicated to
the canoe, startles the other occupant of the boat
to a sense of alertness. The Pamunkey call this
warning a ''shiver." One "shiver" is a signal to be
quiet and paddle gently, for a noise or a glimpse of
something has been sensed. Two "shivers" mean,
"Do you see it?" A "shiver" from the other
hunter is an affirmative. (See pages 353-354.)
382 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
-"^^^
WK
AGRICULTURE
A review of some agricultural practices of the
modern Pamunkey shows but a few features of
aboriginal survival. The corn now raised is the
commonyellow
variety of com-
merce.
Among the
several hun-
dred inhabit-
ants of the
Pamunkey and
Mattaponi vil-
lages there is
not now a sin-
gle log corn
mortar in reg-
t-^^'^ ^pP%. ?^^ ularuse. From
ap^" some speci-
Kmens previous-
ly collected,
however, and
'^M from descrip-
tions of those
Fig. S3. — Pamunkey pounding corn in a 1^1
wooden mortar. USed not SOlong
ago we know
that the wooden mortar and pestle of the Powhatan
area corresponded to those of the Xanticoke.
Mortars were of gum-w^ood, about three feet high,
some with straight sides, others hewed narrower
■mw
POWHATAN TRIBES 383
Fig. 8 4. — Nansamond
hominy mortar. Height, 32
in. (1/8754)
Fig. 85. — Chickahom-
iny medicine mortar,
Size, 13 X 3| in.
toward the bottom, with a disc- like base (figs. S3-
85). In modern times the wooden pestle with an
iron wedge inserted in the end and held by an iron
ring was employed. There is little evidence forth-
coming to show that here the heavy stone pestle, so
common in Pennsylvania and New England, was
25
384 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
used. Only one implement exhibiting the form of
the stone pestle has been found on the Pamunkey
reservation, a smoothed stone of the pestle type,
ten inches long, which was used by the wife of the
chief for cracking corn, hitting the kernels upon a
plank (fig. 87). She stated that her mother had
Fig. 86. — Chickahominy children cracking walnuts with stone mortar
and pounder.
employed it in a mortar. Aside from this tool the
Virginia pestle seems to have been of the wooden
form, though not of the long, heavy, double-ended
type of the Iroquois, Delawares, and Cherokee.
Baskets for agricultural use are seldom made,
although at Pamunkey, Ezekiel Langston constructs
POWHATAN TRIBES
385
them for his own use in carrying fish. His material
is white oak, his weave is the common twill. The
rimming is plain, as is show^n in fig. 89. At Mat-
taponi, however, the girls make
baskets of honeysuckle stems and
their work is neat (fig. 88). But
regarding the history of the tech-
nique little can be said, except that
it is suspiciously European in its
details. We cannot be too sure that
something like it did not exist in for-
mer times, as many references to
baskets of different forms in early
days are encountered. Among the
Powhatan remnants the Rappahan-
nock have best preserved the basket
industry, and this I have covered
in a special report on that tribe. ^
The use of gourds as receptacles,
so general among the southern
tribes and referred to by the writers
on early Virginia, has not been for-
gotten by the Indian descendants
there today. They were and still
are occasionally put into service for
seed containers and water cups, and
one was found employed as a
soap dish (figs. 90, 91). The Pamunkey and Rap-
pahannock do not plant gourd-seeds, but strew
^ The Rappahannock Indians of Virginia, Indian Notes
and Monographs y vol. v, no. 3, 1925.
Fig. 87.— Pa-
munkey stone
pestle. Length.
lOi in. (11/382)
386
ETHNOLOGY OF THE
o
CO
O
POWHATAN TRIBES 387
Fig. 89. — Fragment of large Pamunkey fish basket. (10/5706)
Fig. 90. — Mattaponi gourd cup. Diameter, 3 in. (9/7732)
Fig. 91. — Pamunkey squash-rind dish used for holding soap.
Extreme diameter, 7 in. (11/383)
388 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
them about on rich soil, leaving them to find a root-
ing themselves. They think it ''wrong" to sow
them. Aboriginal habits survive in the employment
of terrapin-shells (fig. 93) and fossil scallop-shells
from the marl deposits (fig. 94) : articles remembered
to have served generations ago and still at times
used through sentimental feelings for the past, being
kept as relics by some.
Fig. 92. — Old Pamunkey gum-wood tray for bread. Length, 22 in.
(10/5708)
The corn, when gathered, is husked by the aid of
the oak peg provided with a leather loop for the
middle finger. Several specimens from Pamunkey
and Mattaponi are illustrated, showing their con-
formity (figs. 97, 98). It may be noted that among
the various surviving Indian communities of Virginia
slight differences are observable in the proportions
and leather grips of these tools, yet at Pamunkey
and Mattaponi they are alike.
A number of agricultural superstitions and beliefs
have been recorded among the half-dozen tribal
POWHATAN TRIBES 389
Fig. 93.-
-Turtleshell used by the Mattaponi for dishing turtle stew.
Length, 9| in. (9/7748)
390 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
POWHATAN TRIBES
391
Fig. 95. — a-d. Wooden stirring paddles; e. Wooden paddle used in
pottery making. Pamunkey. Length of a, 14 in. (10/5688,5689)
392 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Fig. 96. — Mattaponi stirring paddles. Length of the largest, 14^ in.
(9/7729-7731; 10/6566)
POWHATAN TRIBES 393
Fig. 97. — Pamunkey (a-c) and Mattaponi (d-g) corn-husking pegs.
Length, 4| to 6 in. (9/7759; 10/5703; 11/386)
394 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
units in Virginia, and these
I shall present separately
under the topic of folklore.
PAMUNKEY POTTERY
A great abundance of
pottery fragments com-
mands the attention of
the observer who passes
over the open ground
almost anywhere on high,
dry land near the river.
The gathering of quantities
of this material and its sub-
jection to scrutiny as to
frequency, location, and
texture, permit us to draw
a conclusion, making use
o f Nelson's theory o f
horizontal stratification,
an ingenious discovery
that will be of great ad-
vantage to explorers every-
where in America. On the reservation and in
adjacent territory outside there is considerable
variation in the prevailing types of potsherds. In
eastern Virginia at large, the earthenware is of the
coarse, pebbly, heavy, clay variety, often reddish in
color, showing the so-called net-marks which have
been identified and described by Holmes. This
Fig. 98. — Mattaponi corn-
husking pegs of red cedar.
The larger is 6| in, long.
(9/7756)
POWHATAN TRIBES
395
.10
g>
<U >
So
'^'^
•^-^
^S
SO
**- c
O <:^
CJ o
> a
^<
+-> o
t« ^,
>-. <3J
396 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
a
u
o
<
Cm
c3sO
-5
Si;;
ci O
X! O
POWHATAN TRIBES 397
? J
V
fepS^^is^^^iW
4:;^
s
\r
Fig. 101. — Potsherds of hard, historic Pamunkey ware.
398 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
L.
Fig. 102. — Fragments of pottery receptacle handles from the~Pamun-
key reservation, King William county, Virginia. (10/5714)
POWHATAN TRIBES 399
ware abounds along all the inhabitable shores of the
river and is abundant on the reservation. Yet at
certain points of the reservation it gives place, in
respect to abundance, to a thinner, light-drab ware,
very smooth both inside and outside and otherwise
characterized by an absence of incisions or im-
pressions of any kind on the body. And besides
these characteristics, the clay out of which the
latter ware was made contains no pebbles and no
grit, but, on the other hand, a large proportion of
powdered shells. For convenience I shall label the
reddish, pebbly, net-impressed material, of general
distribution in the tidewater region, the Coarse
Ware; and the unmarked, gritless, refined material
which is so abundant on the reservation, the Smooth
Ware,
The matter of explanation becomes quite simple
after a thorough survey of the tidewater region
material has been made. A distributional question,
a problem of material, one also of technique, develop
under our gaze and finally resolve themselves before
us into a culture-historical question involving the
southeast, all of which again emphasizes the singular
importance of pottery as a recording element in
eastern archeology.
First let us look over the material from the Virginia
tidewater area. Everywhere here from the southern
boundary of Virginia by actual observation, north-
ward even through the Delaware valley, the pot-
sherds are almost identical in material, decoration,
26
400 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
CO
^ — '
as
>>C
a; O
^^
<u
CO
;=!
CO
o
C/}
POWHATAN TRIBES
401
and color. Holmes has appropriately called the
ceramics of the tidewater "the Algonkian type."
On the Pamunkey, Mattaponi, Rappahannock,
James, and Chickahominy rivers it is all the same,
the rims, decorations, and ingredients being prac-
tically uniform within a certain range of variation.
Net and cord impressions characterize this work,
%yMM^^^rm
Fig. 104. — Pamunkey men digging clay on the river bank for
pottery making. This is one of the traditional clay-holes of the
reservation.
while the so-called roulette impression, the stick-
end indentation, and the ''comb" indented decora-
tions are familiar. Incised-line patterns are also
sparingly found (figs. 99, 100).
This is evidently the older Algonkian ware. There
IS little doubt of the homogeneity, even in minor
402 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
particulars, of the early pottery of eastern X'irginia.
It is not necessary here to figure or to describe this
and its decorations further, even that which comes
from the immediate Pamunkey region, since it has
been so completely covered by Holmes's study.
We find, however, in several places within this
territory, a great abundance, in small centers, of
the smooth ware. Its sporadic occurrence, its
localized abundance, and some historical circum-
stances, as well as the ethnological conditions
among the present Indians of the region, point
clearly to the conclusion that the ware of this type
came into being after the natives had changed their
economic hab'ts resulting from contact with the
English.
Let us examine some series of these smooth sherds
from the places where they abound on the present
Pamunkey and Mattaponi reservations. In the
first place, the fragments from both places are exactly
alike; hence the conditions of development in both
loci are correspondent (figs. 101, 102). The ware is
characterized by being very smooth, hard, and
fine-grained, the clay free entirely from sand and
grit, yet full of powdered mussel-shell. Its color is
light-brown or uniform drab or gray. Xo incised
or depressed decorations are found in the body.
A few rims only show any attempt at embellish-
ment, which then consists of fine impressions or
dents, sometimes of fingermarks. Next is the most
important thing: numerous angular bottoms, parts
POWHATAN TRIBES
403
r"
T3
r
CJ
i
^.J-
5;^)
"">.
^1
?i
Gnj
\ «- •
t£^
% fc' *
lb
cot:
t^ o
o a
t^
OJ.S
C«^
:^ oj
\)
CO S
13 Vh
-CO
^ >.
(L» ctJ
CO •"■
^^B^H^
OT W
j^^B^^^B^
3 j::
^^^^Bl^lk
S.ti
'x-^^^^^^^
u ^
<^^^^^^^^
5.3
^~ -^^Bg^^^^^^^^^^B
d <u
^^^^^^^^^^^HB
^.2
£^^9^B^^^^^^^^^^H
-C'p
W "W ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^B
CO 5^
■^ # A^^^^^^^^^^^^^^B
<U^
)>4 T"
1 / fH^^I^^H
t^^
/'\^^li^B ^
<^'^
^J^^B^^^^^HB
'^■'
^H^P^^^^B
►o
^i^^B^^V
f
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1
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404 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
of curved handles or lugs, legs and knobbed lids,
together with evidence of flat bottoms and the
exclusive lipped rim style (fig. 102), are indications
of a modification in form, bringing them into corre-
spondence with the common European forms. ^
Here then is the secret, and, comparing this material
with the historic Pamunkey ware, we are forced to
conclude that the later archeological material is
transitional, forming the link between the pre-
European and the modern pottery.
Having now established this chronological con-
nection, we may consider in detail the modern ware
of the Pamunkey and Mattaponi, interesting in a
sentimental sense besides, because here are the last
Algonkian potteries.
Several writers have dealt with the method of
ceramic manufactures of the Pamunkey in as much
detail as was obtainable in a case where the industry
was already early on the wane.
To the descriptions of Pollard (1894) and Holmes
(1899), I cannot add much.
About the first observer, however, to mention
Pamunkey pottery was Mason. He wrote:
The most interesting feature of their [the Pamunkey]
present condition is the preservation of their ancient modes
of making pottery. It will be news to some that the shells
^ The collections made for the Museum of the American
Indian, Heye Foundation, contain hundreds of specimens
of these.
POWHATAN TRIBES 405
are calcined before mixing with the clay, and that at least
one-third of the compound is triturated shell.^
Pollard, who has recorded the most complete
details, says:
Of their aboriginal arts none are now retained by them
except that of making earthenware and "dugout" canoes.
Until recent years they engaged quite extensively in the
making of pottery, which they sold to their white neighbors,
but since earthenware has become so cheap they have
abandoned its manufacture, so that now only the oldest
of the tribe retain the art, and even these cannot be said
to be skillful. The clay used is of a dirty white color^
and is found about 6 feet beneath the surface. It is taken
from the Potomac formation of the geologic series, which
yields valuable pottery clays at different localities im
Virginia and Maryland, and particularly in New Jersey.
Mr. Terrill Bradby, one of the best informed members of
the tribe, furnished, in substance, the following account of
the processes followed and the materials used in the manu-
facture of this pottery.
In former times the opening of a clay mine was a great
feast day with the Pamunkey. The whole tribe, men^
women, and children, were present, and each family took
home a share of the clay. The first steps in preparing the
clay are to dry it, beat it up, pass it through a sieve, and
pound it in a mortar. Fresh-water mussels, flesh as well
as shell, having been burnt and ground up, are mixed with
the clay prepared as above, and the two are then saturated
with water and kneaded together. This substance is then
shaped with a mussel shell to the form of the article desired
and placed in the sun and dried; then shaped with a mussel
shell and rubbed with a stone for the purpose of producing
a gloss. The dishes, bowls, jars, etc., as the case may be,
^ Mason, O. T., Anthropological News, Amer. Naturalist,
Boston, 1877, vol. xi, p. 627.
406 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
^^mA ^^^
CL
4i| A M
^^^J
./
A
Fig. 106. — Mattaponi (a, h), Pamunkey (c-g), and Catawba {h-V)
pottery smoothing stones. (1/8776; 9/7753; 10/5720)
POWHATAN TRIBES 407
are then placed in a circle and tempered with a slow fire;
then placed in the kiln and covered with dry pine bark and
: burnt until the smoke comes out in a clear volume. This
'^•i?Mra*ken as an indication that the ware has been burnt
sufficiently. It is then taken out and is ready for use.
The reasons for the successive steps in this process, even
the^ Indians are unable to explain satisfactorily.
The collection above referred to as having been made
for tlje Smithsonian Institution was put on exhibition at
the World's Columbian Exposition. It consists almost
altogether of earthenware. Besides the various articles
for table and kitchen use, there are in the collection (1) a
*'sora horse" made of clay, and already described under
the head of mode of subsistence, and (2) a "pipe-for-
joy," also made of clay. In the bowl of this pipe are
five holes made for the insertion of five stems, one for the
chief and one each for the four council men. Before the
days of peace these leaders used to celebrate their victories
by arranging themselves in a circle and together smoking
the ''pipe-for-joy." The collection comprised also a
"dugout" canoe, made of a log of wood, hollowed out with
metal tools of white man's manufacture. Such canoes
were formerly dug out by burning, and chopping with a
stone axe.
A mortar, used in pounding dry clay as above referred
to, could not be obtained for the collection. They are,
however, made of short gum logs, in one end of which the
basin of the mortar is burnt out. The pestle accompany-
ing it is made of stone. ^
Holmes dealt rather briefly with the matter.
He wrote:
Before we pass on to the ware of particular localities it
may be mentioned that while the art practiced by the tribes
^ Pollard, J. G., The Pamunkey Indians of Virginia,
Washington, 1894, pp. 17-19.
408 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
of this province when first visited by the English colonists
was soon practically abandoned, at least one community,
a remnant of the Pamunkey Indians, residing on their
reservation on the Pamunkey river adjoining King William
county, Virginia, was practicing a degenerate form of it as
late as 1878. At about that time Dr. Dalyrimple, of
Baltimore, visited these people and made collections of
their ware, numerous specimens of which are now preserved
in the National Museum. ^ A few of the vases then
gathered are shown in plate cxxxvi.
The modeling of these vessels is rude, though the surfaces
are neatly polished. They are very slightly baked, and
the light-gray surface is mottled with clouds of black.
The paste lacks coherency, and several of the specimens
have crumbled and fallen to pieces on the shelves, probably
as a result of the slaking of the shell particles. Ornament
is confined to slight crimping and notching of the rim
margins. None of the pieces bear evidence of use, and it
seems probable that in recent years the art has been
practiced solely or largely to supply the demands of curi-
osity hunters. The very marked defects of manufacture
and the crudeness of shape suggest the idea that possibly
the potters were really unacquainted with aboriginal
methods. It will be seen by reference to the illustrations
presented in this and the preceding section that this
pottery corresponds somewhat closely in general appear-
ance with that of the Cherokees and Catawbas.^
The problem, however, was not quite so simple as
it appeared to the author of this monograph. The
^ It may be well to note in addition that a single speci-
men, a shallow bowl, is preserved of this collection in the
Valentine Museum, Richmond, Va.
2 Holmes, W. H., Aboriginal Pottery of the Eastern
United States, Twentieth Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. EthnoL^
1898-99.
POWHATAN TRIBES 409
Pamunkey industry undoubtedly had some relation
to that of the Catawba, as he shrewdly surmised,
and we shall soon see why.
Since a few years prior to the commencement of
the Civil War, when the railroad was first operated
over the country between Richmond and West
Point, opening eastern Virginian woods to modern
enterprise, the Pamunkey have not manufactured
earthenware for their own use. Mrs. AUie Page
is probably the oldest woman now living at the
Pamunkey village. She remembers in her girlhood
how the women constructed clay pots, milk-pans,
and stewing jars, and carried them to the trading
stores in the country, bearing the crockery upon
their backs in cloth sacks and exchanging it for
small wares, groceries, or cash. The coming of the
railroad strangled the Pamunkey potter's trade by
placing within the reach of the countryside the tin
and crockery ware of commerce. Nevertheless,
Mrs. Page, Mrs. Cook, and Mrs. Margaret Adams,
the latter formerly of Mattaponi, all remember well
the details of the ceramic industry and are still able
to fashion small pottery vessels and jars, though
not w^th the adroit hands of their grandmothers or
even their mothers. The particulars wh'ch I have
to add to the processes quoted are the following:
The living native authorities, whose names I
have just mentioned, tell us about the process.
The constitution of the clay material is about one-
fourth powdered mussel-shell and three- ^ourths clay.
410 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
The mussel-shells are gathered from the feeding
grounds of the muskrat along the runways of the
animal by the river. Quantities of the whole shells
lie in such places, where they are easily picked up.
The shells must then be burned, as the earlier
observers correctly stated. But they did not
describe the method, probably not having observed
it. The procedure is interesting. The shells are
placed in layers alternating with dry cornstalks,
forming a pile the size of which depends on the
quantity of shells. The combustible pile, the top
layer being stalks, is then fired and allowed to burn
out. The burnt shells are then pounded with a
stone. Often, being very much softened, they may
be crushed in the hands. Pollard correctly noted
the stone pounder used by the Pamunkey in powder-
ing the shells as well as the clay. The Catawba do
not employ a stone, but a w^ooden pounder. Speci-
mens of Pamunkey stone pounders for clay and shell
were obtained from the old women (fig. 103).
The clay is dug on the shore of the river near
Bradby's landing. Fig. 104 shows some of the men
at the old Pamunkey clay-hole digging clay as of
old. The clay is selected to be free of sand. Then
it is dried for a few days. Next it is beaten into a
powder with the stone pounder. Then when the day
of pot-making comes, this clay is made wet to the
proper consistency, a matter to be judged only by
the expert. Then on a smooth board the bottom
is laid out in the form of a disc and the walls built
POWHATAN TRIBES 411
up by adding thin layers of clay paste, or, if the vessel
is a small one, by pressing it into shape from a soft
lump of material. The coiling was not followed in
recent times. This is a noteworthy fact. Next
comes the smoothing, which, on the inside, is done
with the edge of a mussel-shell (fig. 105). The
outside, after being so scraped down with the shell,
is rubbed with a smooth pebble, which process
adds an irregular polish to the surface. Specimens
of the rubbing-stones are not uncommon on
Pamunkey and Mattaponi sites, and a few have
been handed me by the same women previously
spoken of (fig. 106, a-g). The Catawba use similar
rubbing-stones and polish their pots likewise (fig.
106, h-l). This also is noteworthy.
Next comes the burning of the pots in the open
fire-hearth (fig. 107). The Pamunkey cover the jars
with corn-stalks and pieces of dry pine-bark to give
them a light-gray color. The stalks and bark are
piled over them to cover them in burning. Occa-
sionally the pots are fired by allowing them to stand
close to the embers. The same is done by the Ca-
tawba.
Among the few native words preserved to us at
Pamunkey comes the name pandja for a vessel used
in boiling fruit. Perhaps this word is not Indian,
even though it appears like an Algonkian term. It
may be a corruption of ''pitcher," yet it does not
refer to an object of pitcher form.
The smooth ware which finally usurped the style
412 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
and technique at Pamunkey was known to the
natives over much of the east. Sherds of the same
texture and surface are found in the Cherokee region,
among the Catawba, and all over the tidewater
Fig. 107. — Pamunkey pottery firing in the open.
Algonkian habitat from the North Carolina-Virginia
boundary to the head of Chesapeake bay. We have
specimens to illustrate this from the Chickahominy
through the country to the Nanticoke area of
Delaware.
It would be interesting to know from similar series
of potsherds what the history of Catawba ceramics
POWHATAN TRIBES
413
has been. The Catawba modern ware is not unlike
that of the Pamunkey, in both texture and form,
except for the mussel-shell tempering of the latter.
Vases, pitchers, milk-pans, and pots are still made
by the Catawba and have been treated by Har-
FiG. 108. — Pamunkev earthenware dishes. The larger is 8 in. in
diameter. (11/8125,8127)
rington ^ and Holmes.^ One might venture to
suspect, however, that the Catawba did have, in
their more advanced southern ceramics, an original
smooth ware. And this is further indicated by the
recovery of the same hard, smooth ware on old
house sites on the Catawba reservation. A dis-
^ Harrington, M. R., Catawba Potters and their Work,
Amer, Anthr., vol. x, 1908, pp. 399-407.
2 Holmes, W. H., in Twentieth Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer.
EthnoL, 1898-99.
414 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
covery further confirming the supposition of rela-
tionship was recently made when a broken earthen-
ware pipe mold was picked up at Pamunkey, its
form abso-
lutely iden-
.^A ^ ~m ^^^^^ with
one used by
the Cataw-
ba today.
W e know
that about
the time of
the Civil
, , T^. ' War there
Fig. 109. — Pamunkev pottery bowl. Diameter,
6| in. (10/5723) was an ex-
change of popu-
lation. Some
Pamunkey fam-
ilies went to Ca-
tawba, inter-
married there,
and never re-
turned.^ With-
in the last
twenty-five
years some of
the Catawba de-
scendants of
these unions re-
FiG. no. — Pamunkey cylindrical pottery
jar. Diameter, 3 in. (10/5724)
1 On the Catawba reservation in South Carolina, almost
a third of the tribe traces its descent with pride from John
Mush and other Pamunkey who formed this movement.
POWHATAN TRIBES 415
turned to Pamunkey to sojourn there for a
few years.
There is little to say in discussion of Pamunkey
and Chickahominy pot forms, those surviving today
being for the minor services as ash-trays and catch-
alls only. (See figs. 108-115.)
Fig. 111. — Pamunkey pottery vessel. Diameter, 5 in. (11/8126)
*^^##
Fig. 112. — Pamunkey pottery cup. Diameter, 6 in. (11/8124)
27
416 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
The question now facing us is one concerning
priority. The resemblance in form and technique
between the Catawba and Pamunkey manufactures
Fig. 113. — Modern clay pot of the Chickahominy. Height, 3^ in.
(11/8147)
is unavoidably striking, though there are several
points of difference that tend to destroy the impres-
sion of an out-and-out borrowing. Positive resem-
POWHATAN TRIBES
417
blances between the two in modern ware are those of
function and form: to wit, handled pitchers, three-
legged stew-pans with lids (fig. 114), the canoe-shape
dish (fig. 115), the round shallow dish, the human-
face pipe, and the four-stemmed ''peace pipe."
Next, the exclusive survival of the smooth ware,
rubbed with the pebble,
might be suggestive of
borrowing were it not
for the fact of the arch-
eological evidence of its
ubiquity in the east.
Moreover, the use of
calcined mussel-shells
in Pamunkey pottery
and the absence of it in
Catawba are distinctive
features. Nor is it a question of lack of material,
inasmuch as freshwater mussels are abundant in the
Catawba country and the women employ the shells
as scrapers for the inside when thinning down the
walls of their pots. Historically, it would seem from
tradition that the manufacture of quantities of
pottery and pipes was carried on at Pamunkey before
contact between them and the Catawba had been
opened by the emigration of old John Mush and
several of his family from Pamunkey to Catawba.
This old man has been dead some sixty-five years and
was over seventy at the time. This would make his
birth about 1800. He went to Catawba and married,
Fig. 114. — Model of Pamunkey
stewing pan of day.
418 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
then later brought his wife to Pamunkey. This
could not have been earlier than 1820. But Mrs.
Cook knows from her mother, who was of Mush's
generation, that her grandmother made and sold
pottery like that which is still known. Would it
not seem plausible, then, to ascribe an early manu-
facture of the smooth-ware to both surviving groups?
Fig. 115. — Pamunkey canoe model of clay. Exact size. (1/8814)
Pipes, — The Pamunkey of early as well as of late
times was a busy producer of clay pipes. This is
shown by the relatively large number of whole pipes
and fragments which the soil of the small reserva-
tion has yielded. With the help of some of the
natives themselves, especially Miss Pocahontas
Cook, I have picked up no fewer than eighty
specimens, either whole or in part, all from the
surface of the open ground. Of these, eight were
entire. The recovery of a portion of the same
form of pipe-stem from near the bottom of a
refuse-pit furnishes evidence of the usual type of
pipe occurring in as ancient a level of Pamunke}^
POWHATAN TRIBES 419
industry as we have knowledge of. The frequency
ratio of pipes in these immediate Pamunkey environs
is undoubtedly high, for, if we compare it with that
published by Skinner
for the Iroquois of
New York, we shall
see that Pamunkey
y'elds an abundance
of clay-pipe speci-
mens not inferior to
many other locali-
ties in the east.
Skinner mentions re-
covering 191 pipes,
whole and fragmen-
tary, from an Iro-
quois (Onondaga)
site, and this he con-
sidered evidence of
extensive pipe man-
ufacture, classing
the Onondaga as
preeminent among
pipe-making groups,
judged by existing
remains. p^^ j^^ — Pamunkey earthenware
In structure there pipes. Exact size. (10/5715, 5731)
^ Skinner, A. B., Notes on Iroquois Archeology, Indian
Notes and Monographs, misc. no. 18, New York, 1921,
pp. 150-51. Among this large number of fragments
Skinner found only four perfect specimens.
420 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
is a close similarity among the pipe remains
from the whole tidewater district. The bowls
are small, the walls thin, and the clay is very
fine and lacks the grit and pebbles of the older
Fig. 117.
-Pamunkey earthenware pipes. Exact size.
(10/6583, 6584, 5730)
pottery texture. The stems are continuous with
the bowl at an angle of about 45 degrees — the so-
called Atlantic coast ''type" or elbow clay pipe of
McGuire.^ Then there is the ''tubular" form in
1 McGuire, J. D., Pipes and Smoking Customs of the
American Aborigines, Washington, 1899, pp. 608-09.
McGuire mentions the occurrence of the same form from
Hudson river to Maryland and perhaps farther south. See
also Holmes in 20th Report Bur. Amer. Ethn., p. 158, pi. cxlii.
POWHATAN TRIBES 421
which the bowl is an enlargement of the stem
standing at a slight angle to it. The proportion of
the types is about one tubular form to ten of elbow
form.
Fig. 118.
-Fragments of Pamunkey pipes.
(10/5715, 5762)
Width of h at rim,
In structure they are generally fine. Bowl and
stem are often generously ornamented with encircling
line indentations which appear to have been placed
upon the clay with either a fine comb or the serrated
edge of a clam-shell. Figs. 116-121 show whole and
reconstructed pipes found at Pamunkey. The series
illustrated is actually typical and may be used as a
standard for comparison with pipes of other areas
and for tracing distribution. I venture even to
say that so typical are these forms and ornamen-
tations for Pamunkey, and so abundant are the
evidences of persistent industry on the reservation,
that whenever we find a closely similar pipe in the
422 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Fig. 119. — Fragments of Pamunkey earthenware pipes. Length of
a, 2\ in. (10/5715, 6585; 11/376, 8146)
POWHATAN TRIBES
423
lower Chesapeake tidewater area it may be traced to
Pamunkey authorship. Such, for instance, I believe
is the explanation in the case of a decorated pipe
figured by Holmes as coming from a point in the
Chesapeake-Potomac area and showing every resem-
blance to our present ware.^
Fig. 120. — Pamunkev earthenware pipes. Length of bowl of a from
rim to stem, 1.4 in. (10/5729, 5732)
The tubular form is present at Pamunkey (figs.
117, h\ 119, c). From its wide distribution in
America, and its occurrence in bone, wood, and stone
in regions westward, this has generally been regarded
as an early form. If so, then the practice of smoking
and the art of clay-pipe making are fundamentals
of Pamunkey culture. Specimens similar to every
Pamunkey form have been obtained from surface
^ Holmes, op. cit., pi. cxLii, d. The other pipes shown
in the plate are absolutely identical with those from
Pamunkey, though the author does not refer to locality.
424 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
exploration of the whole adjacent tidewater. The
Chickahominy has yielded quite a few. Yet it is
worth noting that not every tidewater culture area
yields pipes in the same abundance, for at Nanti-
coke, on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, a
most extended surface examination continued irreg-
ularly, of course, over some ten years has not pro-
duced a single perfect clay pipe and only three
fragments.
^/
Fig. 121.— Fragment of
Pamunkey earthenware pipe-
stem with design projected.
Extreme length, 1.4 in. (11/-
8146)
The influencing fac-
tors on opposite sides of
the Chesapeake were evi-
dently different, for if
the Nanticoke of Indian
river, Delaware, made
pipes in any abundance,
their remains would be
seen by the observer who
knows the sites there as
well as he does those on the Pamunkey. In both
areas the ceramics are of the old Algonkian type,
otherw^ise similar in quality and decoration.
The modern Pamunkey have not quite left off
making pipes. Some of the women, Mrs. Cook and
Mrs. Adams, and some of the men, Jim Bradby
and Paul Miles, manufacture them as they were
made two generations ago. They dig their clay in
the same holes along the river. They gather and
burn the mussel-shells, and clean and mix the clay
with the powdered shell in the same proportion,
POWHATAN TRIBES
425
about one part of shell to five of clay. They burn
them in the traditional way by piling a heap of dry
fine sticks and a dozen or so dry cornstalks to the
height of five or six inches, enough to cover two or
three pipes which have been dried four or five days
in the shade. Then when one covering of the
Fig. 122. — Recent Pamunkey earthenware pipes. The lowermost
one is 4 in. long. (11/8130, 8133-35, 8137)
sticks has been burnt off, the pipes are done and
ready for use. Their work is shown in figs. 122-125.
Holmes has a short discussion of the clay pipes of
the Chesapeake-Potomac group in his monograph.^
^ Holmes, op. cit., p. 158.
426 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
a
-a ON
<i;\0
.—I lO
POWHATAN TRIBES 427
The forms, which he figures and which seem to be
general and somewhat exclusive for this region in
general, are the same as those discussed here and
correspond to the pipe figured by Hariot from
Roanoke in 1590. The tubular and the slightly
bent elbow patterns prevail. Since in form, finish,
and decoration they are generally uniform for
this culture area, it brings satisfaction to be able
to make a step in progress by defining the pipe
characteristics of so wide an area under rather
fixed standards. Very few stone pipes have come
from the area: only one to my direct knowledge, a
fragment of a "monitor" pipe from the Chicka-
hominy river, evidently intrusive.
Among the more peculiar products of eastern
pipe-makers we encounter a few forms of the pipe
bowl provided with four or five holes for the insertion
of stems. This style has been preserved both at
Pamunkey and at Catawba, a rather noteworthy
coincidence in view of the supposed borrowing of
ideas. The occurrence of these forms arouses a
question both of antiquity and distribution. Were
it not for the fact that similar pipe bowls have been
reported from other eastern and southern centers
there might be some doubt on the first question.
The fact that the four-stemmed pipe is not only
Pamunkey and Catawba is proved by a reference to
its former use among the Chitimacha by Swanton ^
^ Swanton, J. R., Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi
Valley, Bull. 43, Bur. Amer. EthnoL, 1911, p. 349.
428 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
c
B
d
■4-J
c
o
a;
POWHATAN TRIBES 429
and by the finding of a specimen in the soil at
Philadelphia. The latter was described and dis-
cussed by Abbott.-^
Manifestly the survival of the unusual form is to
be attributed to the irregular course of human
nterest, illustrated by the persistence of objects
of curiosity through a period of culture decline.
That there was something in the four-stemmed pipe
to appeal to the imagination of the Pamunkey and
Catawba is apparent. Pollard was evidently the
first to note the ''pipe for joy," as the Pamunkey
called it in his time. He says of this clay pipe:
In the bowl of this pipe are five holes made for the
insertion of five stems, one for the chief and one each for
the four council men. Before the days of peace these
leaders used to celebrate their victories by arranging
themselves in a circle and together smoking the "pipe-
f or- joy." 2
The Catawba form, called "peace-pipe," is inter-
esting to us now. At Catawba it is asserted that the
four-stemmed pipe was used, at the command of the
chief, by men who respresented families having a
1 Abbott, C. C, Primitive Industry, Salem, 1881, p. 333;
also in Amer. Antiquarian, vol. i, p. 113. Abbott describes
the pipe as made of white steatite. It was found in a
grave on the almshouse property at West Philadelphia.
It was nearly six inches in height. About two inches from
the base there was a horizontal groove in which were
pierced four equidistant stem-holes. The specimen was
in possession of Mr. W. S. Vaux of Philadelphia. (Notes
by P. E. Scott.)
2 Pollard, op. cit., p. 18.
430 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
O
05
>> .-
fioo
is-
Oh 00
POWHATAN TRIBES 431
-(-> — ~.
w
•-I -3
O. »
^ a-*
S ft
28
432 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
quarrel.^ When the parties had been induced to
smoke the pipe, the quarrel was forgotten. The
only other approach to this form of pipe is known
in the double-bowl pipes from South Carolina and
Tennessee, figured by McGuire.^
Putting things side by side, we may divine that
the ''peace-pipe" was a native southeastern object
surviving at Pamunkey, whose history paralleled
that of the smooth pottery ware of both areas.
One other point is worth considering for a moment:
No stone pipes have been found at Pamunkey. In
fact the only specimen of this nature from the
neighborhood is the broken base of a soapstone pipe
of the ''monitor" type from near Windsor Shades
on Chickahominy river. The absence of stone pipes
would seem to show either that smoking was con-
temporaneous here only in a relatively late age of
ceramics, or that the Powhatan peoples came into
the region smoking only the clay pipes. That they
had a recent residence where we find them may be
suggested for consideration.
Mention should at least be made of wooden pipes,
generally formed of holly roots, made in the region
(fig. 126). These have outlived the native clay
pipes among the descendants of the tribes — their
forms are evidently derived from the clay objects.
1 Holmes (op. cit., pi. cxxviii) figures the Catawba
peace-pipe and gives an account of Catawba pottery-
making, pp. 53-55. Harrington, later in a more detailed
study of Catawba methods, mentions the same object
(Amer. Anthr., vol. x, no. 3, 1908).
2McGuire, op. cit., p. 545, figs. 171-72.
POWHATAN TRIBES 433
FEATHERWORK
We now come to what is perhaps the most inter-
esting topic in the material life of the southern tribes,
the woven feather technique. An art so ancient
and so elaborate can hardly be expected to have
persisted from colonial times down to the present
day where the process of deculturation among the
conquered tribes has gone so far. But surprising
as it is, the Virginia Indians have not entirely for-
gotten, nor even lost, the art of weaving feathers
into the foundation of textile fabrics. The antiquity
of the woven-feather technique is attested by virtu-
ally all the authors of the old colonial descriptions
of Indian life, while its beauty and high esthetic
quality have made it the supreme textile achieve-
ment in a number of ethnic centers on the Pacific
coast, in California, Mexico, and Ecuador, as well
as in Polynesia. In the Gulf area the feather tech-
nique was also widely distributed. Fortunately
we have a number of references to it and some
details of description are recorded. After presenting
the Pamunkey facts, I shall revert to the distribution
of this art in the Southeast and upward along the
Atlantic coast to southern New England, giving
reasons for the inference that this admirable art
was one of the complexes suggested on page 235,
emanating from some center of dispersion in the
south and drifting north along the coast.
The feather art is reported in early times from
most of the lower Mississippi and Gulf tribes and as
434 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
B
(V
a
>
o
3
POWHATAN TRIBES 435
far north as the Delawares of Pennsylvania and the
Narragansett of Rhode Island.
The facts pertaining to the Virginia survival of
this much-discussed art and technique are as follows:
In 1919 I learned at the Mattaponi village from
Mrs. John Langston that in her mother's time
knitted textiles were occasionally made with wild-
turkey feathers inserted at the loops, covering the
whole of one side of the fabric. She also recalled
the use of feathers other than those of the turkey in
the making of decorated moccasin-tops and bags.
Particular mention was made of capes so covered
with turkey-feathers as to be warm and durable as
well as beautiful. Mrs. Langston claimed to have
been taught the process by her mother and then
referred to several other old women who should
have seen the feather articles in their younger days,
and who perhaps knew also how to knit them. As
a result of stimulating her interest she undertook
then to make a specimen or two.
From Margaret Adams, however, the oldest
woman at Pamunkey town, who herself came from
Mattaponi originally, the best specimens of the work
were procured. Upon these specimens and informa-
tion gleaned at large from the older women of both
bands we may base the claims of the survival until
today of the feather technique in Virginia. The
specimens submitted are 'ndeed poor but tangible
evidences of the old art's provenience and partial
character.
436 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
The material employed in the technique is native-
raised and homespun cotton, which forms the base
material of the fabric.
The feathers used are primarily those of the wild
turkey, domestic turkey, shelldrake, Guinea fowl,
Virginia cardinal, flicker, and in one case parts of
commercial ostrich-feathers dyed blue.
The technique itself is not complicated, being
neither particularly difficult to operate nor to
describe. The plain knitting stitch is employed.
Four steel or bone needles are used. Mrs. Adams
said that she understood that the long leg-bones of
herons, '* cranes," were used before trade needles
reached them. Several of these (fig. 130) were
obtained as specimens of the same, taken from the
great blue heron. As the knitting proceeds, at a
third or fourth stitch, a single feather is worked into
the fabric, being caught fast by its base and some-
times the shank of the plume, which is, of course,
soft and pl'able, the feathers being carefully selected
with this in view, and is caught in several stitches
to hold it tight. In the better executed specimens
the feathers are quite firmly attached. The turke}'-
feather cape, for instance, may be suspended by
almost any one of the feathers without danger of its
shaking loose.
This cape (figs. 4, 127) is made of native-spun
cotton and wild-turkey breast-feathers, while near
the ends the white feathers of the shelldrake are used.
The color of the body of the garment is beautifully
POWHATAN TRIBES 437
Fig. 128. — a. Specimen of feather weaving, Mattaponi (ostrich
^eathers) ; 6, Piece of woven featherwork for decoration on front seam
of moccasm, Mattaponi (wild-turkey, guinea-fowl, and goose feathers) ;
c. Piece of featherwork for front of pouch Pamunkey (flicker, cardinal,
and wild-turkey feathers). Length, 7
m.
438 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
iridescent black or bronze, the ends being varied
with black and white. Strings of the cotton foun-
dation, woven with fine duck-down, at each end
permit the cape to be tied about the neck.
Fig. 129,
-Pamunkev moccasin-tops of wild-turkey feathers.
Length, 13 in. (11/8139)
The small specimen (hg. 128, c) is similarly woven
and ornamented with cardinal, wild-turkey, and
flicker feathers. It was to form the decorated front of
a pouch. These two were made by Mrs. Adams.
Mrs. Langston at Mattaponi made the other two small
objects (fig. 128, a, 6), one woven, like the preceding,
POWHATAN TRIBES
439
of guinea-fowl feathers, the other,
of blue ostrich-feathers, intended for
a moccasin-top decoration.
Mrs. Langston says that in her
mother's time, some sixty years
ago, specimens of such capes and
even moccasins were not infrequent.
In fact they are rather well known
in both tribes by hearsay. Duck-
feathers are spoken of as much used,
reminding one forcibly of the refer-
ences in the older literature on the
southern tribes. Mrs. Langston
says that the stiff ends of the
plumes projecting through the inside
surface of the fabric were generally
trimmed off even with the textile
and then the feather surface was
"rubbed down until it looked like
fur."
Mention here might also be made
of feather capes, known as well in
recent times, i n which heron-
feathers were simply sewed on a
cloth cape in rows one above the
other and overlapping. These are
of course much more simple than
the woven garments, but evidently
none the less aboriginal. A collar Fig. 130.— Pa-
r _^-i' r r munkey heron
oi this torm appears worn as part of leg-bone needles.
the Indian costume in the photo- in.
Length, 7.6 and 6
(10/5702)
440 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
graph of Chief \V. T. Bradby (figs. 5, 6). The use
of whole duck-skins as head coverings has persisted
until the present. One such, worn by Lee Major,
of Mattaponi, is shown in fig. 15. Loon- and
heron-skins, either breasts or backsof the bird entire,
Fig. 131.— Mattaponi feather headdress. Height, 11 in. (9/7766)
were also employed. Descriptions of these articles,
however, belong more appropriately under the topic
of costume and ornament.
The last and perhaps the most interesting speci-
men to come to hand is a pair of moccasin-tops
(fig. 129) made by Mrs. Adams. These are of wild-
POWHATAN TRIBES 441
turkey breast-feathers woven on the cotton founda-
tion in the same manner as in the cape. The
feathers cover the entire top and sides of the
moccasin, which is of the single instep seam type
of the southern tribes, originally of deerskin, later
of canvas.
For Virginia we have numerous early references
and descriptions of feather weaving.
Of the Virginia Indians, Captain John Smith's
account (1612) says: ''We have seen some use
mantels made of Turkey patterns, so prettily
wrought and woven with tweeds that nothing could
be discerned but the feathers, that was exceeding
warm and very handsome." ^
Strachey, writing in 1622, uses almost the same
w^ords as does Smith in describing this remarkable
art. He refers, however, frequently to the remark-
able feather technique, referring to ''cloaks of
feathers," "mantells of feathers," and describes a
certain queen of Chawopo, who entertained him,
dressed in a "mantell which they call puttawus,
which is like a side cloake, made of blew feathers,
so arteficyally and thick sowed togither, that it
seemed like a deepe purple satten, and is very
smooth and sleeke." He says these fabrics were
sewed with thread of a kind of grass called pemmenaw
spun between the thigh and the hands, and that
not only mantles, but trousers and fishlines were
^ Tyler, Narratives of Early Virginia, op. cit., p. 100.
442 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Fig. 132. — Two shell beads (roanoke) from the Pamunkey reserva-
tion, King William county, Va. ,and fourteen specimens of fossil univalve
wampum from site of Apocant, Chickahominy river. (10/5757, 5805)
POWHATAN TRIBES 443
made of it.^ In another reference Strachey says
that in Virginia the feather mantle was called
cawassow."^
The extension of the feather-woven fabrics to the
Hudson river is vouched for by several references
to this art among the Delaware Indians of New
Jersey and Pennsylvania. Swedish and Dutch
authors described "ingenious suits" made of turkey-
feathers overlapping, and held together by means
of wild-hemp cord.^ Skinner has compiled ethno-
logical information concerning the Delawares of
Staten Island, N. Y., in which there is reference to
doublets of turkey-feathers in De Vries' Journal
and other documents."^
Heckewelder ^ has a description of the mantles:
Blankets made from feathers were also warm and
durable. They were the work of the women, particularly
of the old, who delight in such work. ... It requires
great patience, being the most tedious kind of work I have
seen them perform, yet they do it in a most ingenious
1 Strachey, Historic of Travaile into Virginia, pp. 58,
65, 68, 75.
2 Ibid., p. 186.
^Johnson, Amandus, The Indians and their Culture as
Described in Swedish and Dutch Records from 1614 to
1664, Proc. Nineteenth Internat. Congr. Americanists^ Wash-
ington, 1915 (1917), p. 280.
^Skinner, A. B., The Lenape Indians of Staten Island,
Anthr. Papers Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. in, N. Y., 1909,
pp. 40-41.
^ Heckewelder, John, Indian Nations, Mem. Hist. Soc.
Penn., vol. xii, Philadelphia, 1876, pp. 202-3.
444 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
manner. The feathers, generally those of the turkey and
goose, are so curiously arranged, and interwoven together
with thread or twine w^hich they prepare from the rind or
bark of the wild hemp and nettle, that ingenuity and skill
cannot be denied them.
The most northerly record of the feather mantle
is encountered in Roger Williams' description ^ of
the turkey-feather mantles of the Narragansett of
Rhode Island. He remarks: '' Neyhommaua-
shunck,^ a coat or Mantle, curiously made of the
fairest feathers of their Neyhommauog or Turkies,
which commonly their old men make; and is with
them as velvet with us." Willoughby ^ quotes sev-
eral other references to the art in New England.
Among the Gulf and lower Mississippi tribes the
feather technique was still more prominent, as is
attested by a number of explorers and historians.
The Carolina tribes of Siouan affinity were
acquainted with the art, as we learn from Lawson,
who in 1701 recorded it for the Santee and Catawba.^
Lawson mentions a ''doctor" of the Santee who
''was warmly and neatly clad with a match coat,
^ Williams, Roger, Key to the Indian Language, Coll.
Rhode Island Hist. Soc, vol. i. Providence, 1827, p. 107.
2 The term is literally "turkey mantle": neyhom (pi.
-mduogj op. cit., p. 85); -uashunck denotes a mantle or
cloak.
^ Willoughby, C. C, in Amer, Anthr., vol. vii, no. 1,
1905.
^Lawson, John, History of Carolina, 1714, quoted and
discussed by James Mooney, Siouan Tribes of the East,
Washington, 1894, pp. 70-79.
POWHATAN TRIBES 445
Fig. 133. — Chickahominy chief's neck-ornament.
(11/8148)
Length, 7^ in.
446 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
made of turkies feathers, which makes a pretty
show, seeming as if it was a garment of the deepest
silk shag." ^
In another place the same author says:
Their feather match coats are very pretty, especially
some of them, which are made extraordinary charming,
containing several pretty figures wrought in feathers,
making them seem like a fine flower silk shag; and when
new and fresh, they become a bed very well instead of a
quilt. Some of another sort are made of hair, racoon,
bever, or squirrel skins, which are very warm. Others
again are made of the green part of the skin of a mallard's
head, which they sew perfectly well together, their thread
being either the sinews of a deer divided very small, or
silk grass. When these are finished, they look very finely,
though they must needs be very troublesome to make.^
Feather mantles ''of various colors" of the tribes
of the South Carolina coast, identified by Swanton
as Cusabo, were mentioned by Peter Martyr.^
Again the feather mantles were seen among the
Mobile Indians in 1540 and described as follows by
Ranjel: "He [the chief] also wore a pelote or mantle
of feathers down to his feet, very imposing." ^
The Creeks were adepts in the art of feather
weaving, for Bartram was impressed with the beauty
of cloaks woven of flamingo-feathers which he
described in several of his works. ^
1 Lawson, ibid., Raleigh ed., 1860, p. 37.
2 Ibid., pp. 311-12.
2 Quoted by Swanton, J. R., Early History of the
Creek Indians, Bull. 73, Bur. Amer. Ethnol., 1922, p. 44.
^Swanton, ibid., p. 151.
^Bartram, Wm., Travels Through North and South
Carolina, Philadelphia, 1791, pp. 502-03, and Observations
on the Creek and Cherokee Indians (1789), in Trans.
Amer. Ethnol. Soc, vol. iii, pt. 1 (1853), p. 29.
POWHATAN TRIBES 447
Du Pratz thus describes the art in Louisiana:
If the women know how to do this kind of work they
make mantles either of feathers or woven of the bark of
the mulberry tree. We will describe their method of doing
this. The feather mantles are made on a frame similar
to that on which the peruke makers work hair; they spread
the feathers in the same manner and fasten them on old
fish nets or old mantles of mulberry bark. They are
placed, spread in this manner, one over the other and on
both sides; for this purpose small turkey feathers are used;
women who have feathers of swans or India ducks, which
are white, make these feather mantles for women of high
rank.i
And in another place he continues:
Many of the women wear cloaks of the bark of the
mulberry tree, or of the feathers of swans, turkies, or
India ducks. The bark they take from young mulberry
shoots that rise from the roots of trees that have been cut
down; after it is dried in the sun they beat it to make all
the woody part fall off, and they give the threads that
remain a second beating, after which they bleach them
by exposing them to the dew. When they are well whit-
ened they spin them about the coarseness of pack-thread,
and weave them in the following manner: they plant two
stakes in the ground about a yard and a half asunder, and
having stretched a cord from the one to the other, they
fasten their threads of bark double to this cord, and then
interweave them in a curious manner into a cloak of about
a yard square with a wrought border round the edges.^
Butel-Dumont also adds to the testimony by
1 Le Page Du Pratz, Histoire de la Louisiane, English
trans., London, 1763, vol. ii, pp. 191-92.
2 Ibid., p. 23.
29
448 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
a b
Fig. 134.— Old (a) and new (6) types of Mattaponi bullroarers.
Length of a. 8i in. (9/7738, 7759)
POWHATAN TRIBES 449
briefly describing the featherwork of the natives of
Louisiana as follows:
They [the women] also, without a spinning wheel or dis-
taff, spin the hair or wool of cattle of which they make
garters and ribands; and with the thread which they obtain
from lime-tree bark, they make a species of mantle, which
they cover with the finest swan's feathers one by one to
the material. A long task indeed, but they do not count
this trouble and time when it concerns their satisfaction.^
The featherwork of the Choctaw is described by
Adair as follows:
They likewise make turkey feather blankets with the
long feathers of the neck and breast of that large fowl —
they twist the inner end of the feathers very fast into a
strong double thread of hemp, or the inner bark of the
mulberry tree, of the size and strength of coarse twine, as
the fibres are sufficiently fine, and they work it in manner
of fine netting. As the feathers are long and glittering,
this sort of blankets is not only very warm, but pleasing
to the eye. 2
At Cutifachiqui similar fabrics were observed by
members of De Soto's expedition in 1540:
In the barbacoas were large quantities of clothing,
shawls of thread, made from the barks of trees and others
of feathers, white gray, vermilion and yellow, rich and
proper for winter.^
^ Memoire sur la Louisiane, Paris, 1753, vol. i, pp. 154-
2 Adair, James, History of the American Indians,
London, 1775, pp. 422-23.
^ Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto in the
Conquest of Florida as told by a Knight of Elvas, trans-
lated by Buckingham Smith, New York, 1866, p. 63.
450 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
Later authors^ have mentioned this elaborate
art and commented upon its diffusion. Wissler
suggests a Mexican center of diffusion ^ where the
technique is most elaborate and equals the Peruvian
work in quality and complexity. The distribution
of featherwork in South America is wide and the
technique conforms in general with that of Peru.^
POSTSCRIPT
In the foregoing chapters I have completed the
third of a series of monographs dealing with the
modern cultural life of communities of descendants
tracing their origin from the tribes inhabiting the
Chesapeake tidewater area. The question arises as
to the bearing of such studies on the ethnology of
the original native groups, since there has been so
^ Willoughby, C. C, The Virginia Indians in the
Seventeenth Century, Amer. Anthr., vol. ix, 1907, p. 69.
Holmes, W. H., Prehistoric Textile Art of the Eastern
United States, Thirteenth Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol.y
1891-92, pp. 24-30.
2 Wissler, Clark, The American Indian, 1917, p. 61.
He quotes Sahagun as the principal source for the descrip-
tion of this trait-complex. The most accessible treatment
for Central America is that of Eduard Seler, Ancient
Mexican Feather Ornaments, Bull. 28, Bur. Amer. EthnoL,
1904, and for the Maya, P. Schellhas, Comparative Studies
in the Field of Maya Antiquities, ibid., pp. 611-12.
2 Mead, C. W., Technique of Some South American
Feather Work, Papers Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. i, pt. 1,
1907. E. Nordenskicld (An Ethnogeographical Analysis of
the Material Culture of Two Indian Tribes in the Gran
Chaco, Gothenburg, 1919, p. 230) emphasizes the lack of
data for a study of distribution in South America.
POWHATAN TRIBES 451
extensive a transformation in their make-up through
European influence. The Virginia Indians, like all
peoples passing through successive changes in their
transit from simple to complex culture, must have
undergone revolutions in their mode of life many
times. This can be imagined when we picture the
waves of influence that swept across their frontiers
from surrounding areas in earlier times. These
changes, before the coming of Europeans, would all
seem to have remained within the horizon of native
American culture, hence were less violent in effect.
For, viewed at several periods of their history,
separated by intervals of a century, we see the same
tribes greatly altered in their physical and cultural
aspects. By contrast with the tribes in Beverley's
time they are constitutionally new tribes now.
Despite this, something more than moral and
social tradition survives to continue the group as a
unit under its old name.
It is difficult to point out just what surviving
qualities there are beyond those discussed herein.
Conversions of similar magnitude from one type of
civilization to another have marked their progress,
as is apparent in scanning their history since 1607.
And again the same may be inferred easily when
we build upon ethnological and archeological infer-
ences. Although possessed of Algonkian speech,
with affinities northward, their social and political
properties, as known to us, conform to southeastern
Siouan types, while their religious peculiarities point
452 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
to affinities with the southeast in general. Sweeping
cultural change is indicated. Finally when the
change — nearly the ultimate one before demise —
comes to them through the agency of Europeans,
whose cultural properties we know too well to
consider interesting when transferred to other races,
the thing appears as a platitude and we are inclined
to discount the final condition as lacking in value
and appeal. Yet it is obvious that this should not
be so in the eyes of culture historians, lest through
similar sentiments the account of greater modern
peoples similarly transformed be closed — a case not
without parallel in Europe and Asia. Culture his-
tory does not cease to evolve even for these wasted
remnants of peoples whose will and temperament
three centuries ago meant success or failure to the
struggling and feeble colonies whose descendants
have replaced them.
Now comes an era of reconstruction since 1920.
The descendants of the Powhatan groups, to avert
obliteration of their names and racial tradition, have
organized into corporate associations and proceeded
along modern lines to carry on a social program for
consolidation of their forces. It opens another
phase of their history, hopeful in certain aspects,
though impeded by recollections of recent social
oppression, poverty, slander, and naive ignorance
of white diplomacy. Their desire to exist as smaller
nationalities is behind the move. To revive the
individuality of their Indian ancestry, they have
POWHATAN TRIBES 453
resorted to grafting customs borrowed from alien
Indian groups upon their own denuded cultural
framework. This accounts for the introduction of
elements of costume, ceremony, and social pageantry
met with in their modern tribal life and conspicuous
in some of the illustrations of this paper. The
critic regards it as degenerate ethnology; but it is
not, except in technique: rather is it regenerate.
Now at the final move they face the alternatives of
losing hold completely and turning down and out
in their endeavor, or, more happily, of struggling
onward with revived vigor and purpose. The future
student of American folk-communities of Indian
descent will find here new tribes with new trait-
complexes to analyze and interpret. These con-
tributions represent some culture aspects of the
humble groups now at a climax and turning point
in their history.
APPENDIX NOTE
The following note in reference to the regalia of
the Queen of Pamunkey was received from Dr. W.
Franklin Jones of Richmond (correspondence, Nov-
ember 21, 1928):
"The Queen of Pamunkey, a descendant of Ope-
chancanough and Totopotomoi's widow, was intro-
duced into the room and recognized in certain special
dignities. Accompanied by an interpreter, and her
son, a youth of 20 years, she entered with graceful
454 ETHNOLOGY OF THE
dignity. Around her head she wore a plait of black
and white wampumpeake, a drilled purple bead of
shell, three inches wide, after the manner of a
crown."
''There is preserved in the House of Chief Justice
John Marshall, Richmond, Va., a silver frontlet,
purchased from the Indians, with a coat of arms, and
inscribed 'The Queen of Pamunkey,' 'Charles, the
Second, King of England, Scotland, France, Ireland
and Virginia,' and ' Honi soit qui mal y pense.'
"This frontlet is mounted on a purple velvet
turban; the chains are missing, and I have copied the
following description as written.
'"This silver frontlet was a gift from Charles the
Second of England to the Queen of the Pamunkey
Indians who were then located in the eastern counties
of Virginia. The original gift to the Queen was a
Royal Purple Velvet Crown to which this frontlet
was attached by heavy silver chains.
"'For many years much prized by the Pamunkey
Tribe, it was in the keeping of the Chief. Desiring
to move further West, the Indians, in the early
part of the 19th century, set out upon their march.
Sickness and a severe winter detained them near
Hollywood, Stafford county, Virginia, the estate of
Alexander Morson. He permitted them to camp
upon his place and was very kind to them, giving
them food and medicine and making them comfort-
able. Spring found the Indians ready to move.
The Chief called upon Mr. Morson to express
POWHATAN TRIBES 455
gratitude for his kindness and presented this precious
relic as a gift, the only thing of value possessed by the
tribe. Mr. IVIorson was unwilling to accept the gift,
but when before leaving the Chief again insisted
upon its acceptance, Mr. Morson consented to
purchase the relic for its weight in silver coin, and
upon those terms became the owner. By his father's
will this relic came into the possession of Mr. Arthur
Morson of Richmond, and later into possession of the
Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiqui-
ties by purchase.'"
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